A pre-electoral assessment mission of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) based in Washington DC calls for democratic consolidation before the parliamentary elections that will take place in the Republic of Moldova on February 24, 2019 by restoring public confidence in electoral processes. Representatives of the mission said Moldova can and should be a success story of democracy in the region and maintain a competitive and pluralistic environment in the region, including by demonstrating the capacity to hold authentic elections with motivated players.
In a news conference at IPN, Laura Jewett, NDI regional director for Eurasia, said the mission assesses the context and pre-electoral environment in the Republic of Moldova and factors that could affect the integrity of the electoral process. In the course of this week, the NDI delegation had meetings with representatives of the whole political spectrum and of national and international election monitoring missions, and also met with government and election officials, parliamentary candidates, political party leaders, and representatives of civil society, the media, the international community, local public authorities and the diplomatic community. Following the meetings, the delegation presents its findings and recommendations.
Michael Carpenter, senior director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, noted that the goal of the mission was not necessarily to assess the integrity of the electoral process, but rather to identify areas with potential vulnerability. Among the main observations is the intimidation of candidates and potential candidates in the pre-electoral and electoral processes, including through prosecution threats. The necessity of ensuring the independence of the judiciary is another aspect mentioned by most of the interlocutors of the delegation, especially in light of the events of June 2018, when the local elections in Chisinau weren’t validated. A part of the interlocutors complained about the use of administrative resources that could incline the electoral process to a particular direction. As regards the information environment, even if this can be characterized as pluralistic, it does not offer all the players equal opportunities. In this connection, concerns were stated about misinformation online and possible difficulties in the process of registering candidates and in ensuring the right to vote, especially for voters abroad.
Michael Carpenter said there are also positive findings, namely that a large number of parties in Moldova stipulated the promotion of women in politics in internal documents. At the same time, in the discussions with representatives of the Central Election Commission, it was ascertained a high level of technical preparation. It is recommended that intimidation should be excluded from a genuine electoral process. This applies to candidates, parties and journalists, to representatives of civil society, etc. “We call on the authorities, the Government to clearly specify that the abuse of administrative resources will be ascertained and those responsible will be held accountable in accordance with the legal provisions. We call on the media to ensure equal access for all the parties and candidates and to equitably cover the whole process. We also call on the international community to make effort in the monitoring of electoral processes and to become involved in discussions with the authorities,” stated Michael Carpenter.
Zlatko Vujović, president of the governing board of the Center for Monitoring and Research CeMI and secretary general of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations, said the mission forms part of the international community’s bigger effort to monitor electoral processes. “We would like to thank the Government of the Republic of Moldova and the Central Election Commission for the invitation and for transmitting a welcome to all the observers of the electoral processes in Moldova. The OSCE, ODIR will assign long- and short-term observers. The International Republican Institute deploys long-term observers and will also have a high-level mission on the election day. ENEMO will also have long- and short-term observers, observers on the election day,” stated Zlatko Vujović, noting national observers will also be assigned.
Funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the NDI pre-election assessment mission for the February 24, 2019 parliamentary elections will be in Moldova December 12-15. The National Democratic Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan nongovernmental organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.
