The electoral promotion through tents, distribution of materials with a political or electoral content and meetings with the people are the favorite activities in the election campaign of the aspirants for the mayoralty of Chisinau. The activities featured mainly the Party of Socialists’ candidate Ion Ceban, independent candidate Silvia Radu and candidate of the Party “Platform Dignity and Truth” Andrei Nastase. Such conclusions can be found in the first May 20 local elections monitoring report presented by Promo-LEX Association on April 19, IPN reports.
In a press release, Promo-LEX said at least two situations revealing the abusive use of administrative resources were identified in the electoral promotion activities – collection of signatures in support of Silvia Radu and the campaign tin support of the Democratic Party’s candidate in Volovita commune. Furthermore, the observers of Promo-LEX reported at least two cases that can be described as offering of presents in the electoral period, both of these involving the Party of Socialists’ candidate for mayor of Balti and the First Lady’s Charity Foundation “From the Heart”.
In the context of the May 20 new local elections, Promo-LEX also monitored the use of language that incites hatred and discrimination and sexist language in the messages of the election runners and other forms of publicly manifested intolerance. Ion Ceban made use of hate speech, while Andrei Nastase disseminated at least two times messages that incited discrimination and violence and contained sexist language.
As to the election campaign funding, at least 478,800 lei was already spent on electoral activities staged by potential candidates before these were registered. According to Promo-LEX, after being officially registered as election runners, at least two candidates, Ion Ceban and Reghina Apostolova, of the Shor Party, spent over 160,000 lei on electoral activities, more than 151,000 of which was spent by the Socialist candidate. No electoral contender opened an “Electoral Fund” account, spending money outside such an account and violating thus the legislation. By April 17, the Central Election Commission published no financial repot of election runners or political parties. The Commission is obliged to publish financial reports within 48 hours of the receipt of these.
The Promo-LEX observation mission reiterated the necessity of obliging, by the example of the presidential elections, all the candidates for mayor to present signatures in their support, not only the independents. Also, the number of signatures requested in Chisinau and Balti is too high compared with the number of signatures that are to be collected by candidates for MP in single-member constituencies. The women do not benefit from advantages in collecting signatures as in the parliamentary elections and this is regrettable.
The observation mission expressed its concern about the considerable discrepancy between the data from the State Register of Voters and the electoral rolls – of 18 713 voters in 2016 and 17 368 voters in 2017 in the case of Chisinau municipality and of 4 214 voters in 2016 in the case of Balti municipality. To ensure transparency and integrity in the electoral processes, the responsible authorities should clearly and conclusively explain the nature of these mutations.
The observation mission works throughout the electoral period. Eight long-term observers of the mission will monitor all the electoral constituencies established for the May 20, 2018 elections. On the election day, Promo-LEX will delegate by one short-term observer to oversee the elections at each of the 375 polling places.
