Jurist Ștefan Gligor explained what violations that can influence the election outcome are. “If, for example, there were falsified ten votes and they represented the difference between the scores of those who lost and the winner, the falsification should be proven, while the responsible state institutions should investigate them and make sure that the investigation results are credible,” the expert explained in IPN’s public debate “Election rigging: how it is done, how to fight it.
But in Moldova this mechanism does not work. “In our country things stand as follows: the electoral contenders present evidence of the violations to the Ministry of the Interior, the Prosecutor’s Office and the CEC, but these simply ignore the facts. Bu the law provides that before the Constitutional Court starts to examine the election results, relevant decisions should be taken over all the petitions and protests,” stated the standing expert of IPN’s project.
He reiterated that for now the Prosecutor’s Office hasn’t examined the violations identified at the previous elections. “There were presented conclusive proofs, including photo and video evidence, and Article 181-prime of the Penal Code (bribing of voters) remains in force, but the state remains blind and deaf ,” said Ștefan Gligor.
He also explained why the violations are not noticed by foreign observers. “These are usually persons who do not know the language of the country in which they work, do not know the kinship relations, don’t understand how influence is exerted at district level. They just look from aside. And this happens not in all the polling stations, but in some of them. The foreign observers simply cannot spot the violations,” noted the expert.
He underlined that civil society and the journalists should document and declare the violations in the electoral process despite the indifference and inertia of the state.
The public debate “Election rigging: how it is done, how to fight it” was held as part of the mini-series “We and the President: who elects who, who represents who?” that is part of the project “Developing political culture through public debate” that is implemented by IPN with support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
