June 3 local elections in Chisinau could be invalidated. Investigation by Info-Prim Neo

The results of the June 3 local elections could be invalidated, Nicolae Raileanu, member of the Chisinau District Election Council (CDEC), considers. He cites serious violations of the electoral legislation in the elections for mayor general and for the Chisinau Municipal Council as the reason for his conclusion. Nicolae Raileanu told Info-Prim Neo that during six years since he is a member of CDEC this is the first time he witnesses such badly organized elections. He described the organization of elections as disastrous. The non-professionalism and poor preparation of the elections by the CDEC and the violations of the legislation could lead to the invalidation of the elections, the quoted source considers. According to Raileanu, one of the crassest electoral errors was the withdrawal of Mihai Roscovan from the race for the post of Chisinau Mayor five days before the elections and not seven days before the Election Day as stipulated in the Electoral Code, and the preservation of his name in the ballot papers. Dozens of polling stations applied the stamps “cancelled” on the ballots under his name and not “withdrawn” as required by the legislation, the CDEC member says. Another serious violation is the absence of the emblem of the Labor Union “Patria-Rodina” from the ballot papers. This fact aroused the indignation of the party, which said it will sue the Chisinau District Election Council. Raileanu says that the CDEC blamed the printing house for this, as if it forgot that a CDEC representative signed the text ready for printing. [The infringements came one after another] Raileanu considers that these violations would be enough to make the court, which was already notified by several parties, invalidate the elections in Chisinau. The infringements yet came one after another. According to the quoted source, there were printed too many ballots. The packages for the CMC with 500 ballots included in reality 560 ballot papers. “There has never been such a disaster. Every time there was printed the same number of ballots as the number of voters and only once I found in a package by 7 ballots more than indicated. Now I have 525 extra ballots for Ciocana sector only,” Raileanu said, adding that two ballots cast for Iordan had other stamps that the ones of the polling station. At the same time, Nicolae Raileanu says that the polling stations have not been provided with boxes for storing and transporting the ballots and these have been brought to the CDEC in bags and different packages. Some papers were coming out of the bags, while some seals were destroyed. Raileanu said that the Audit Office is to examine another aspect of the CDEC activity – the purchase of supplies for the polling stations. According to the legislation, the necessary supplies must be purchased by the winner of a tender contest. The management of CDEC yet chose by itself the company, which supplied the poling stations with yellowish papers with mould smell, with 12 rulers, 0.5 kg of wax and other things at prices that exceeded the market prices 3-4 times. [Deadline for presenting proceedings was exceeded two times] All these taken together will make many heads of electoral bureaus, persons with seniority in the area, to leave these activities. This will lead to the degrading of the respective area and, imminently, to greater errors in the next elections, Raileanu says. The CDEC President Ion Cretu could not be found to comment on these accusations. Contacted by Info-Prim Neo, the secretary of the Council Aliona Cazacu said that indeed Mihai Roscovan left the electoral race five days before the polls, presenting only a declaration informing the CDEC that he withdraws, without asking that he be withdrawn. The Council discussed the issue at a meeting and decided to accept Roscovan’s decision. The polling stations were ordered to apply the stamp “withdrawn” under his name on the ballot papers. Cazacu could not comment on the cases when the world “withdrawn” was replaced with the word “cancelled”. Speaking about the absence of the UM PR’s emblem in the ballots, Aliona Cazacu said that the text of the ballots was written by the CDEC and presented, together with the emblems of the five independent candidates, to the Central Ejection Commission (CEC), which was to submit them to the printing house together with the emblems of the parties. In such a way, the CEC is to blame for the absence of the UM PR’s emblem as it signed the ballots before sending them to printing. At the same time, the CDEC secretary confirmed that the packages from the printing house contained a different number of ballots than the indicated one, but there were by ten extra ballots more and fewer. “Proceedings with every sector official of the Council were drawn up after counting the ballots,” the quotes source said. Aliona Cazacu says that all the polling stations had been provided with additional boxes for the ballot papers, which is a normal thing if taking into account the number and size of the ballots. As regards the purchase of supplies for the electoral bureaus and polling stations, the CDEC secretary said that the vice president of the Council Galina Bejenari was responsible for the tender contest for providing supplies. A number of 464 settlements of the 898 will organize the second round of voting on June 17. The elections in one settlement will be rerun. According to the CEC, at 15.00 on Thursday, the Chisinau municipality was not in the list of the 464 settlements because it did not present the proceedings with the final results within 48 hours of the close of the polling stations. The proceedings were presented at 17.00, meaning 90 hours of the close of the polling stations, without being signed by all the CDEC members. Representative of the Christian Democratic People’s Party in the CDEC, Victor Popov, who was in charge of the suburbs, said at the Council’s meeting that he did not want to sign the proceedings because the president and vice-president of the CDEC, Ion Cretu and Galina Bejenari, closed the door behind them when they were in the room with the boxes and bags containing the ballot papers for the suburbs and din not want to open when Popov insistently asked, fact that was confirmed by other members of the CDEC. The representative of the Democratic Party Ion Popov is the second CDEC member that did not sign the proceedings.