The iData poll carried out during October 22-29 correctly anticipated that only one round of voting in the mayoral election will be held in Chisinau. It also correctly projected that the number of seats on the Chisinau Municipal Council for the National Alternative Movement Party and the Party of Action and Solidarity will be the same and the score will be very close. In a news conference hosted by IPN, the company presented the analysis of the election results in Chisinau and the iData poll.
Mihai Bologan, executive director of the sociological company iData, said that the poll estimates not the election outcome, but the grownups’ intention to vote. Also, after the data were collected, the campaign continued for at least a week and the respondents could change their electoral option meanwhile. The poll could not yet envision the exclusion of an election contender.
The first conclusion of the poll was that Ion Ceban will most probably win the election by the first round of voting, but narrowly and it happened so. The second conclusion was that Lilian Carp will definitely rank second in Chisinau, while the third assumption was that the third place in Chisinau will be taken by one of four contenders – Cristina Vulpe, Adrian Albu, Victor Chironda, or Ruslan Codreanu. Consequently, Adrian Albu ranked third. The fourth conclusion was that other candidates will poll less than 3%.
“Ion Ceban, according to the poll, was supported by 52.9% of the decided voters. The final result is 50.6%. The percentage is not only within the maximum margin of sampling error, but also differs insignificantly from the forecast 52.9%. The forecast with regard to Ion Ceban was really a very good one,” stated Mihai Bologan.
According to the poll, Lilian Carp was to gain 17.9%, but gained 28.2%. The iData director said that this only significant discrepancy between the poll and the obtained score has a number of explanations. “The first explanation is the intense campaign to mobilize the voters during the last days combined with an anti-Ceban campaign. Another explanation is the use of the administrative resource, including the mobilization supported by the central authorities. There is evidence showing how the government in Chisinau performed activities to mobilize the people to go to the polls. But in general, the central authorities played an important role in bringing more PAS voters to the polls. It also goes to the polarization of electoral messages. At the beginning, the campaign centered on urban development and projects, but later was narrowed to a simple pro- or anti-Ceban campaign. Most probably, the explanation that is much more relevant is the better conversion of the PAS score into the score for Lilian Carp,” explained Mihai Bologan.
As regards Victor Chironda, the difference between the poll data and the obtained score is small – 4.9% against the real score of 3.8%. This difference explains somehow why the score of Lilian Carp is higher. According to Mihai Bologan, the situation can be the same also in the case of Ruslan Codreanu, who didn’t gain 4.6% as the poll showed, but 1.4%. “We speak about two candidates of the right who in the poll obtained higher percentages than in reality, while another candidate of the right, Lilian Carp, on the contrary obtained more votes as a percentage in elections than in the poll,” said Mihai Bologan.
“As to Adrian Albu, the poll provided an accurate score of 4.4% as the real score in elections was of 4.5%. In the case of Vasile Bolea, the result is also practically identical – 2.8% in the poll and 2.4% in elections. Vadim Brînzaniuc in elections won less than in the poll – 1.8% vs 0.4%. Anatol Usatyi, Ion Bulgac also polled almost the same percentage as the survey estimated, while Diana Caraman polled more. This is probably due to the fact that Cristina Vulpe was excluded from the competition. Vasile Costiuc is probably the only candidate of the right who in elections obtained more than in polls,” stated Mihai Bologan.
According to him, as there were 27 candidates, it was hard to precisely estimate the result of each of them, particularly in the case of candidates with a low score. As they could see, the exclusion of candidate Cristina Vulpe didn’t significantly influence the election outcome, but the PCRM’s candidate probably gained some more votes.
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