NGOs call on election runners to abandon vote buying

The Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections calls upon the electoral contenders to ensure financial transparency and to have a correct behavior in the campaign preceding the June 5 local elections. In a communique, the Coalition expresses its concern about the increasing number of cases of electoral present offering and other practices aimed at corrupting the voters, Info-Prim Neo reports. The Coalition urges the election runners to abandon the practice of vote buying. It requests the Central Election Commission to thoroughly examine the financial reports of the contenders and to take legal measures to warn and penalize those who break the law. The Ministry of the Interior and the Prosecutor General's Office are asked to minutely investigate the attempts to corrupt the voters. According to the NGOs, such practices run counter to the international electoral standards. The Coalition will describe these cases in its monitoring reports and will take them into account when formulating its final appraisal of the election campaign.