International observers wait for Election Day to draw final election conclusions

The international observers wait for June 3 to reach a final verdict on the quality of elections. “It is too early for us to be conclusive at this stage and it would have to wait until after the elections when will make our report to produce recommendations and conclusions”, said Susane Bolam, Chair of the observation mission of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe. The Congress had observation missions to all the recent elections in Moldova and it has made recommendations to suggest how the electoral conducts can be improved, those have not always being actioned upon. For his part, Ambassador Dieter Boden, Head of the observation mission of OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR), has also said it is too early to make conclusions, because we still miss a very important stage of this election process, which is election day. The observation mission has issued up to now two interim reports which covered a significant part of the election campaign. Yet, they do list some concerns and are critical of phenomena that occurred in the present campaign. One of the main issues refers to media coverage of the campaign, with pressure on candidates being another major concern. The US Ambassador to Chisinau Michael Kirby said he has travelled to several regions of Moldova, where he met with people, and discussed with several leaders of the parties. “All of us believe in a democratic process, and in the importance not just of an election on the day of election, but in the whole electoral process. “We care not at all who wins the elections, we care that Moldova wins the elections by running a campaign which we can consider free and fair”, the ambassador also said. On Thursday, the three officials, together with the Mission of OSCE to Moldova and the special representative of the secretary general of the Council of Europe met with the representatives of the civil society and political leaders of Moldova.