IPN News Agency will mount electoral debates on October 21 and 22. The draw to decide the order in which the candidates for President will be invited to the debates was held on October 16.

The Agency’s director Valeriu Vasilică said that three days were initially scheduled for the debates given that there are eight candidates on the ballot. Regrettably, three of the eight candidates rejected IPN’s invitation to take part in the debates. The representatives of candidates for President Renato Usatyi and Violeta Ivanov declared verbally that the candidates have a tight schedule and cannot come to debates. The spokesman for candidate Igor Dodon provided a written response saying that “Igor Dodon decided to dedicate all his time to meetings with voters and his objective is to reach all the country’s districts”.

As a result of the draw, it was decided that the first electoral debate will involve the UNION Electoral Bloc’s candidate Dorin Chirtoacă and the National Unity Party’s candidate Octavian Țîcu. The second debate will involve the candidate of the Party “Dignity and Truth Platform” Andrei Năstase, the Action and Solidarity Party’s candidate Maia Sandu and the Liberal Democratic Party’s candidate  Tudor Deliu.

“We thought that it is not fully appropriate to invite too many people here, in a closed place, during the pandemic. Moreover, these people are really busy in the period. That’s why we chose to hold the draw online. As we want maximum correctness and credibility in this format too, we respectfully asked the Mission of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO) to offer us its support,” stated Valeriu Vasilică.