The mechanism for setting a cap on the amounts that can be spent in the election campaign must be reviewed, while the Central Election Commission (CEC) needs special software to verify the voting reports. These are some of the recommendations formulated by Promo-LEX Association in its final report on the monitoring of the legislative elections, IPN reports.

Corneliu Cirimpei, senior analyst within the monitoring effort of Promo-LEX, said that electoral bureaus could not be set up in all the constituencies agreed initially. A worrisome finding is the absence of personnel from the electoral bureaus at a time when they were to be there.

“If we speak about the attitude to the election runners, we can say that other election runners could have also been accused of the violations based on which one contender was removed from the race. I think mechanisms should be worked out to ensure the equal treatment of all the contenders. In breach of the law, a part of the election runners started the election campaign earlier. However, unlike the previous years, many of the contenders enjoyed a very good representation at the CEC,” stated Corneliu Cirimpei

However, there were identified cases of use of administrative resources in favor of election runners. Promo-LEX analyzed the performance of the local and regional mass media and ascertained that the media outlets favored some of the contenders. The financing of campaigns was yet the most serious problem. “We are glad that at least the reporting procedure was clearer and this allowed us to see the relevant shortcomings,” said Corneliu Cirimpei.

The report recommends improving the mechanism for controlling the financing of election campaigns and instituting a common and uniform verification mechanism. Gradual penalties for electoral deviations should be adopted.

CEC deputy head Stefan Uratu said that the Commission always took into account the opinion of civil society and the given report will be analyzed thoroughly. The CEC lays emphasis on the necessity of holding credible elections, which means free and fair elections as well.

The executive director of Promo-LEX Ion Manole voiced hope that the report will be useful to the authorities, while the identified problems and mistakes will not be repeated in the future.