Some of the election contenders and potential contenders started to campaign before the legal time. The observers of Promo-Lex during May 12-25 reported at least 15 electoral activities without calls to vote and 18 cases of calling to vote for a particular election contender. In 17 cases, this was done by the Electoral Bloc of the Communists and the Socialists (EBCS), while in another case by the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), says the second report of Promo-LEX Observation Mission for the snap parliamentary elections of July 11, 2021, IPN reports.
In a press briefing, Nicolae Panfil, Promo-Lex programs director, said that following official registration in the electoral race, there were reported 46 activities carried out by four election contestants: the Party of Action and Solidary – 80%, the EBCS – 11%, the Electoral Bloc “Renato Usatîi” (EBRU) – 7% and the Shor Party – 2%. Among the most popular activities were the dissemination of electoral materials (63%) and meetings with voters (28%).
There were recorded at least 121 cases (EBCS) that can be described as use of administrative resources. Of these, 120 cases refer to the involvement of public sector employees in campaigning and one case to the taking of merits for services provided with public funds. There were identified three cases that can be classed as offering of presents with an electoral impact (EBCS – 2, EBRU – 1) and a case that can be classed as involvement by the President of the country in campaigning in support of an election runner (PAS). Based on information reported by observers, there were identified at least 23 cases of hate speech and inciting of discrimination in the public sphere, in the mass media and online.
Nicolae Panfil noted that until now the National Exceptional Public Health Commission didn’t adopt regulations on the rules of conduct in the election campaign in times of a pandemic. There is the decision of April 9 saying the state of public health emergency is declared by the local extraordinary public health commissions based on local COVID-19 incidence indicators. From the viewpoint of Promo-Lex, such a situation can cause difficulties to election contenders at the local level as these can be disoriented and can effectively not know the rules of conduct in a region of the country.
Until May 26, the CEC registered eight contenders: six parties and two electoral blocs. The minimum gender quota of 40% was obeyed by all the candidates. In all the eight cases, the candidates were placed on the list by obeying the legal provisions – at least four candidates of a distinct sex per each ten places. At the same time, Promo-LEX determined that most of the contenders started to campaign before their right hands being registered.
