Promo-Lex urges authorities to take steps to improve voting process in Transnistria

Promo-Lex Association recommends the Moldovan authorities to take measures to improve the voting process in the Transnistrian region. The recommendations were formulated in the final report on the monitoring of the electoral process in Transnistria on April 5. The report was presented on June 8, Info-Prim Neo reports. Promo-Lex considers that 500 polling places should be opened and outfitted in Transnistria. It recommends providing free expert legal advice to detainees and persons persecuted by representatives of the Transnistrian law enforcement bodies, investigating all the cases that created impediments during the elections and punishing the persons to blame according to the legislation. “It is not possible to hold democratic elections if the human rights are not observed, especially the freedom of expression and the freedom of the press, the freedom to move inside border, the freedom of assembly and the freedom of association for political purposes,” Promo-Lex says in a press release. “The April 5 parliamentary elections for Transnistrians were held with multiple violations. There were reported numerous cases of persecution and intimidation of the population into not taking part in the elections. We can thus say that the elections were neither free nor fair,” said the Association’s jurist Pavel Postica. The participation of the Transnistrian residents in elections remains a formality that is usually reduced to the putting of the “voted” stamp in the identity card and to the throwing of the ballot in the ballot box, Promo-Lex says. The final monitoring report says that only 10 polling places were set up for Transnistrians. They were located in neighboring settlements that are under the jurisdiction of the constitutional authorities. This is a violation of the Election Code, which says that the polling places are set up for at least 30 and at most 3,000 voters. On the other hand, the Central Election Commission printed only 14,500 ballots for about 223,580 potential voters, depriving 209,080 Transnistrian residents of the possibility of casting their votes. This is over 8% of the total number of voters in Moldova. “Only 4,042 voters in the Transnistrian region marked their ballots. This is about 50% of the voters that took part in the previous legislative elections,” the report says. Promo-Lex also says that the voters did not have the possibility of getting fully informed about the April 5 elections, the candidates and the electoral platforms. The election runners did not campaign much in the region. The mass media did not address the issue of fair informing of the population about the electoral process in Moldova. As a result, the influence of the regional media outlets prevailed and has led to a low turnout in the region. Promo-Lex is a member of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections – Coalition 2009. It monitored the electoral process in the Transnistrian region. The project was implemented with financial assistance from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the United States Agency for International Development.