Political party against before-election opinion polls

The Humanist Party of Moldova (HPM) urged the media institutions to stop publishing the results of the opinion polls during the election campaign. The appeal was launched at a press conference on Thursday, May 31. According to the candidate of the HPM for the Chisinau Mayor, Ion Mereuta, the reasons which should determine the media to refrain from publishing before-election polls is the fact that certain parties are being favoured and the voters misled. According to the HPM, the citizens are being misled by the different results of the polls. Moreover, according to a press release of the HPM, many voters refuse to participate in elections because they say the winners are already known. The HPM candidate for municipal councillor, Oleg Onishcenko, told the same news conference that the opinion polls launched by IMAS, CBS AXA, Socio-Inform Centre and the Institute of Public Policies were ordered by several political parties and “contain false data”. In this context, the representatives of the HPM said that they hold information about the financing of the opinion polls by certain parties, but they refused to name them, because “such cases should be investigated by the specialised bodies”. HPM want the media representatives to make public only the results of the elections. HPM has sent a petition to the Central Election Commission on May 29, by means of which it requests the prohibition of before-election opinion polls and to allow publicising only the final results of the elections.