Promo-LEX Association published on Friday, 17 November, the Report no. 5 of the Observation Mission for the Local Elections from 5 (19) November 2023, which presents findings on the work of electoral bodies, examination of contestations and notifications, performance of competitors, including their financial reporting, as well as use of hate speech in the campaign for the second round of local elections.<\/p>\n
Recount of ballots. Validation of mandates<\/strong><\/p>\n CEC has ordered for 10-12 November 2023 the recount of ballots in 18 electoral constituencies. Promo-LEX OM observed 57 ballot recount procedures, monitoring the degree of compliance by the bureau members during the recount.\u00a0 It was found that in more than 42% of cases the voter lists were not checked and in about 25% of the observed cases there was no compliance with the requirement that only one EBPS member should present the ballot papers to all participants. In one case (PS 9\/4) the observer was prevented from receiving certified copies of the minutes.<\/p>\n Regarding the results of the recount, we note that the differences in votes were not significant. Relatively higher values were found in only two cases. In the recount of the ballots for the local councils of level I, in the town of Calarasi and in the commune of Mile\u0219tii Mici (Ialoveni) differences of about 17 votes were found for PDCM and PSDE candidates, without affecting the distribution of mandates.<\/p>\n From 10 November 2023, the process of confirming the legality of elections and validating the mandates of local elected representatives by the electoral constituency councils began. It should be noted that the involvement of ECEC in this process is a novelty in the electoral legislation, as previously this procedure used to be carried out by the courts.<\/p>\n Promo-LEX OM observed several ECEC meetings and notes that the process of validating mandates generally went according to the normative provisions.<\/p>\n More electoral contestations, but most rejected or inadmissible<\/strong><\/p>\n According to Promo-LEX observers, in the period 5-15 November, at least 150 contestations and notifications were submitted to electoral bodies (ECEC I \u2013 16, ECEC II \u2013 79 and CEC \u2013 55). Their number has significantly increased compared to previous monitoring periods. Most of the contestations related to vote counting and tabulation, confirmation of the legality of elections, illegal electoral campaigning, use of administrative resources and illegal campaign financing.<\/p>\n As regards the solutions issued, we note that the majority were either rejected or declared inadmissible (49 \u2013 at ECEC level and 44 \u2013 at CEC level). The deadlines for resolution were not respected in all cases.<\/p>\n A more apathetic electoral campaign<\/strong><\/p>\n Involving a much smaller number of candidates, the electoral campaign for the second round of the local general elections was more apathetic than that on the eve of the first round and focused mainly on meetings with voters, which accounted for 57% of the total 53 campaign activities observed.<\/p>\n Most activities were carried out by PAS \u2013 45%, followed by PSRM and PN \u2013 12% each. Of the total activities observed, most were organised in Balti \u2013 32%, Ungheni \u2013 15% and Floresti \u2013 10%.<\/p>\n Promo-LEX OM found at least 19 cases that can be qualified as misuse of administrative resources. All of them were in favour of PAS candidates. These include involvement of President Maia Sandu in the local general elections (3 cases) and participation of Prime Minister Dorin Recean (14 cases) and Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development Andrei Spinu (2 cases) in campaign activities.<\/p>\n According to Promo-LEX OM, the involvement of the President, the Prime Minister and other public officials in electoral campaign activities violates the principle of clear separation between state institutions and political parties and does not ensure equal opportunities for electoral competitors.<\/p>\n Campaign financed mainly from parties\u2019 budget allocations<\/strong><\/p>\n According to CEC\u2019s website, for the period 8 \u2013 10 November 2023, out of the 17 political parties and 3 ICs that submitted financial reports, only 9 political parties and 2 ICs declared revenues, amounting to a total of 646,119 lei. In the case of other electoral competitors, no revenues were accrued for the monitored period. Most revenues were reported by PAS \u2013 73%, followed by PN \u2013 14% and PDCM \u2013 4%. The largest share of revenues (74%) is again transfers from the current accounts of political parties, mainly allocations from the state budget.<\/p>\n In the period 8 \u2013 10 November 2023, 11 political parties and 1 IC reported expenditures in total amount of 954,095 lei. The most expenditures were reported by PAS \u2013 70%, followed by PSRM \u2013 15% and PN \u2013 8%.<\/p>\n Following the civic monitoring, Promo-LEX OM estimated that at least 35,401 lei were not spent on electoral activities carried out by 8 political parties. Of the total estimated unreported expenditures, 41% were for PSDE, 22% \u2013 PSRM and 18% \u2013 PDCM.<\/p>\n According to destination of expenditures estimated as unreported, most were for promotional materials \u2013 41%, followed by social media advertising \u2013 32% and internet advertising \u2013 18%.<\/p>\n During the monitoring period, at least 2 cases of \u201ethird party\u201d involvement in financing electoral advertising on social media were found. In this context, Promo-LEX OM reiterates its recommendation that the Electoral Code should regulate political and electoral financing by \u201ethird parties\u201d.<\/p>\n Hate speech emphasised<\/strong><\/p>\n In the period 30 October \u2013 12 November, Promo-LEX identified at least nine cases of hate speech, including two that took a more serious form of manifestation \u2013 justifying violence and threats. Another two cases were sexist language and the remaining five took the form of discriminatory language about mental disabilities.<\/p>\n In most instances, the cases identified were based on \u201epolitical affiliation\u201d and were directed against politicians, members of political parties and their supporters. These nine cases were distributed 1,735 times and had more than 651,000 views.<\/p>\n Please note that on the day of the second round of elections, Promo-LEX OM will delegate a static observer in 174 polling stations and in the other 442 polling stations \u2013 the electoral process will be observed by 49 mobile teams of two observers each.<\/p>\n See the full report\u00a0here<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n The report was prepared with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Democratic, Transparency and Accountability Programme and of the European Union under the project \u201eStrengthening the electoral legislative framework and assessing its implementation during the 2023 general local elections\u201d.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Promo-LEX Association published on Friday, 17 November, the Report no. 5 of the Observation Mission for the Local Elections from 5 (19) November 2023, which presents findings on the work of electoral bodies, examination of contestations and notifications, performance of competitors, including their financial reporting, as well as use of hate speech in the campaign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[77,1,30],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alegeliber.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alegeliber.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alegeliber.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alegeliber.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alegeliber.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alegeliber.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3989,"href":"https:\/\/alegeliber.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions\/3989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alegeliber.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alegeliber.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alegeliber.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alegeliber.md\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}