Opposition candidate is hot favorite for elections in Gagauzia -Survey

The candidate for the office of bashkan (governor) of Gagauzia could be voted by 40.4% of the region’s population, shows a survey the data of which were presented on Monday, November 20, in Chisinau. According to the survey conducted by the “Socioinform” Research Center, Formuzal is followed in the voters’ options by the present bashkan Gheorghii Tabunscic, for whom 15.3% of the electors could vote. According to the survey, Nicolai Dudoglo would garner about 13% of the voters, while Alexandru Stoianoglo – 6.8%. Over 20% of the electors did not make up their minds as regards the candidate they will vote for yet. Over 80% of the respondents think they will participate in the elections, while 6% are decided not to take part in. 30.5% consider that the elections will be held with many violations and will be unfair, while half of those interviewed think the elections will be fair, and serious infringements will not be committed. The survey was carried out in the period from 10 to 16 November, covering a figure of 1150 persons. Ion Batcu, the Center’s representative, said that the survey was carried out at the order of the “Atlantic Council of Ukraine”. He asserted that he received this offer by mail, then met with an intermediary called Vitalii Andrievskii. Batcu stated that he does not know what the respective organization deals with and he did not receive the money for carrying out the survey yet. According to him, a group of 15 persons from Gagauzia was working at the survey, some of them he did not see even. Batcu did not say anything about the margin of sampling error, mentioning that “it will be seen after elections are held”. Elections for the office of head of Gagauzia will be held on December 3.