Governor elections in Gagauzia were "free but not correct"
The December 26, 2010 second round of governor elections in Gagauzia was "free but not correct", as the autonomous region's Piligrim-Demo Association has put it.
The Association presented its election monitoring report at a news conference this week, at which the organization Chairman, Mikhail Sirkeli, stated that the continuing unproven accusations - that the elections were allegedly rigged - have undermined the population's trust in regional governance structures.
Piligrim-Demo monitors indicated the main problems that arose during the past election campaign, such as e.g. the non-transparency of the Gagauzia Election Commission, lack of funding, biased media coverage of the elections, poor quality of drawing up voter registers, etc.
"Due to chronic under-funding, the [Gagauzia's] central election commission failed to carry out its functions in full. It failed to follow deeply how the election campaign was covered by the media, how the candidates' election campaigns were funded. Also, the commission informed local residents about the elections quite poorly", said Sirkeli, adding that the whole work was carried out mainly by only 3-of-9 election commission members.
The Association believes that to avoid the repetition of such situations in the future, it is necessary to improve the electoral legislation and cooperation between the Gagauzia Election Commission and the Republic of Moldova's Central Election Commission.
Infotag's dossier: At the December 26 second round of elections, then-incumbent Bashkan [Governor] of Gagauzia Mikhail Formuzal received 51.4% and his opponent Nikolai Dudoglo, the Mayor of Comrat town (Gagauzia's capital) and leader of the New Gagauzia Movement, - 48.6%.
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