Moldova takes over ACEEEO presidency

Moldova took over the presidency of the Association of European Election Officials (ACEEEO) that it will hold until April 2010. The decision was taken at the 18th yearly conference of the ACEEEO and the Association’s General Assembly that was held in the Armenian capital of Yerevan between September 3 and 5, Info-Prim Neo reports. Moldova was represented by the president and vice president of the Central Election Commission (CEC). “We will hold the ACEEEO presidency because we conducted the April 5 and July 29 elections in a highly professional manner,” the CEC president Eugeniu Stirbu told a news conference in Chisinau on Tuesday. He said that the conference participants discussed the legal protection of the electoral rights, the international experience of using sociology in the electoral process, the lessons learned in the 2009 parliamentary elections, the mechanisms for guaranteeing the electoral rights. “It was emphasized that the legal protection of the electoral rights in the democratic countries represents the essential guarantee for democratic elections and that the Constitutional Court plays a major role in the electoral process,” Eugeniu Stirbu said. Special attention was paid to the sociological methods used in the electoral process. The sociologists recommended the CECs to cooperate with the civil society and encourage exit polls. The Central Election Commission considers that the international experience exchange is very important for improving the electoral practices, Stirbu said. The vice president of the CEC Renata Lapti said that the electoral rolls are a major problem not only for Moldova, but also for such countries is Georgia and Lithuania. “We plan to improve the compilation of the registers in the future,” Renata Lapti said. She announced that international experts will work at the CEC during October-January. “Together, we will prepare a report that will cover all the problems, including of the electoral registers. The next early conference of the ACEEEO that will take place on April 10, 2010 will center on the registers of voters.” The Association of European Election Officials was founded in Budapest in 1991. It has been promoting the institutionalization and professionalization of democratic procedures in the region as a non-profit, regional organization, which is independent from political parties and governments with a legal standing based on international law. Presently, it has 28 members. Moldova became an ACEEEO member in 1998.