The lifting of parliamentary immunity and the measures of depriving of freedom of some politicians during the election campaign are able to affect the perception of voters and the equality of chances in the elections. The finding appears in Report no. 3 of the Observation Mission of the general local elections and the snap parliamentary elections of October 20, held by Promo-LEX Association. At an IPN press conference, Pavel Postica, the head of the Mission, said that these actions could be qualified as use of administrative resources.
During the observation period, September 4-24, at least 2430 files for the mayoral position were submitted to the 896 electoral councils. Promo-LEX observers are warning about a differentiated approach to contenders with the same type of violations, some being registered, others not, said Pavel Postica.
Another item of the report relates to the deficiencies found in the accomplishment by the local public administration authorities of the tasks related to ensuring a transparent and fair electoral process. "Only 77% of the local public administration authorities approved the decision on electoral display and only 64% approved the decision to provide a minimum of venues for meetings with voters," said Pavel Postica.
The head of the Election Observation Mission sent a letter to the CEC, looking for answers regarding the one hundred-meter neutral space where, on election day, the unjustified presence of certain persons shall not be allowed. "We want to find out what are the actions taken by the electoral bodies when such cases are attested," said Pavel Postica. Also, in the letter addressed to CEC, Promo-LEX wants to know how and where the approximately 200,000 voters who have neither domicile nor residence will vote.
Pavel Postica recommended that the electoral bodies be more active in verifying the documents presented by political parties and in examining the appeals filed by electoral competitors.
The report was drawn up with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development, through the "Democracy, transparency and accountability" program.
