Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections considers that the scrutiny for parliamentary elections of 28.11.2010 was free and partially correct
Starting from the basic principles[1] of free and fair elections, indeed:
– guarantee a campaign climate without violence;
– ensure that neither violence nor intimidation bars the parties and the candidates from freely presenting their views and qualifications;
– equality of opportunity should be ensured between parties and candidates and should prompt the state to be impartial towards them and to apply the same law uniformly to all;
– guarantee universal and equal suffrage to all citizens;
– indiscriminatory access to media of all contestants and neutral coverage by media in particular by the publicly owned media;
– freedom of media;
– freedom of voters to form an opinion;
– the proper maintenance of electoral registers;
– a clear separation between the State and political parties, that will no permit, inter alia, the use of administrative resources by governors in the party’s interests during the electoral campaign, except the cases specified by the law.
The Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections
finds a significant improvement of the legal framework and of the election campaign for the parliamentary elections of 28 November 2010 general climate, comparatively with the parliamentary elections held in 2009;
appreciates the electoral campaign for the parliamentary elections of 28 November 2010 as being generally devoid of serious attempts to intimidate or to prevent the electoral candidates to present their electoral platforms;
appreciates the efforts of the State authorities, including electoral authorities, to ensure the necessary conditions for Moldovan citizens from Transnistrian region, as well as, those that are abroad to exercise their right to vote;
appreciates the role of media institutions, that, generally reflected the entire electoral process and offered large opportunities for a dialogue to all electoral candidates;
appreciates the larger openness of TV and radio broadcasters (with the exception of NIT and Prime TV channels) towards the civic education activities carried out by the civil society as well as their contribution to the process of voters’ information and civic education;
appreciates the Central Election Commission and civil society efforts in carrying out voter information and civic education campaigns.
Based on that,
The Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections considers that the parliamentary elections of 28.11.2010 were free
At the same time,
The Coalition considers that the scrutiny was not totally correct.
The Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections found that during the campaign for the parliamentary elections 28 November 2010 the international standards in electoral matters were not totally respected:
Although fewer than in the parliamentary elections of 2009, still some cases of administrative recourses use; voters’ intimidation; forbidden electoral posting and campaign; electoral gifts were found.
Some gaps were found in the activity of CEC and of the local electoral authorities. The Coalition is especially worried about the insufficient training of the some electoral bureaus’ members and improper exercise of some CEC attributions related to the approval of civic education materials developed by civil society. At the same time, although the out of country citizens that voted on A4 paper format had the possibility to exercise their right to vote, the Coalition remains worried about the fate of these votes and about the CEC capacity to assure the exercise of the right to vote to all the out of country citizens. Simultaneously, in the country, some voters categories, for instance students, could not exercise their voting right due to unclear voting procedure related to voting pursuant to their domicile and/or their residence.
The Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections found during this electoral scrutiny too a partisan behaviour of some media outlets that intensely promoted the virulent and xenophobe speeches of some electoral contestants. This kind of behavior was assessed mostly in the news and materials on elections presented by NIT TV channel, Moldova Suverana and Nezavisemaia Gazeta newspapers, as well as the www.omg.md web site.
Some political parties put pressure on civil society to prevent it from informing citizens in an objective and transparent manner regarding the candidates’ lists of these parties.
Voters from Transnistrian region had the opportunity to vote at any polling station open for citizens from this region. However, this right was not fully ensured, as state authorities and election contestants did not carry out information campaign regarding November 28, elections in this region, no specific activities in this regard (debates, rallies, election posters) were organized.
The Coalition is still concerned about some unsolved problems, especially those related to the elaboration of electoral lists and their verification by the voters. Although this provision is specified in the Election Code, the Coalition notes that election lists had not been published on CEC website.
Another aspect the Coalition is worried about is the imperfection of the legal framework regarding the financing of political parties – that raises doubts about parties’ behavior in this sense.
Women continue to be under-represented in the electoral lists and this fact contradicts the principle of equal opportunities stipulated in the legislation of the RM.
Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections draws the attention of the authorities, of the politicians, mass-media, and civil society on the need to continue the efforts for ensuring free and fair elections, to ensure further improvement of election processes in the next election campaigns in the RM.
For additional information, please contact: Nicolae Panfil, Secretary of Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, tel. 27-42-00, mob. 079381842, e-mail: info@alegeliber.md . The list of reports and press releases elaborated/ sent by the members of the Coalition and the Secretariat during the election campaign for early parliamentary elections on November 28, 2010 could be found on this webpage www.alegeliber.md
The Council of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections:
Ion Manole, Director of Promo-Lex Association
Ion Bunduchi, Association for Electronic Press (APEL)
Daniela Terzi-Barbarosie, Executive Director, Centre “Development Partnership” (CPD)
Petru Macovei, Executive Director, Association for Independent Press (API)
Nadine Gogu, Executive Director, Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ)
Serghei Neicovcean, Director, CONTACT Centre
Sandu Coica, Chairman of Youth National Council of the Republic of Moldova (CNTM)
[1] Venice Commission Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters adopted in 2002 and the Document of the Copenhagen meeting of the Conference on the human dimension of the OSCE of 29 June 1990, to that Republic of Moldova adhered on 10 December 1991.