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Promo-LEX observers monitored the conduct of the new local elections in 10 settlements of the country, where elections for the position of mayor and local councilors were held. At the same time, the Observation Mission carried out a parallel vote counting, which confirmed the preliminary results, announced by the Central Election Commission. The information was collected and reported by 18 short-term observers, who monitored the electoral process in each polling station.

Thus, in the first round, residents of Horodiste, Rezina district; Moara de Piatra, Drochia district; Tataresti, Straseni district; Zaicani, Rascani district, Hagimus, Causeni district elected their mayors and voters of Lozova,  Straseni district and Bobeica, Hincesti district elected their  representatives in communal councils. On June 12, 2022, the second round of elections will be organized in Ghetlova, Orhei district, Glinjeni, Falesti district and Zastanca, Soroca district.

The monitoring on the Election Day revealed that the polling stations were opened regularly and all the democratic principles and legislation were respected. The Observation Mission found that voting was organized efficiently and there were no irregularities.

At the same time, Promo-LEX observers reported six incidents. Namely, there was a case of electoral campaigning within 100 meters of the polling station 30/24 Lozova. In the polling stations Ghetlova, Zastinca and Lozova, there were four cases of ballot photographing and in the polling station 20/07 Bobeica, members of the polling station stopped the mandatory video recording during the vote counting process.

There was also a big difference between the number of domicile voting applications submitted in the settlements, where the election took place. Most of them were requested in the villages of Glinjeni, Moara de Piatra and Zaicani, registering 46, 51 and 66 applications respectively. On the other hand, from 2 to 4 such applications were submitted in other five polling stations. We remind you that according to international practice, the use of mobile ballot boxes is not recommended, as it is accomanied by a high risk of counterfeiting.

Another finding of the Mission concerns the accessibility of polling stations. About 67% of them do not meet the minimum accessibility requirements and do not have a ramp for people with locomotor disabilities.

The polling stations closed regularly. In most of the cases, electoral bureaus counted the ballots quickly, except for Zastanca village, Soroca district. About 1/3 of the polling stations ignored the rule on the mandatory counting of the ballots by a single member.

You can see in the table below the results of the parallel vote counting for the settlements, where the mayors were elected in the first round.

It should be noted that the formulas i = c + j and j = i-c could not be applied correctly in the case of one protocol. Thus, either the unused and canceled ballots or the signatures from the electoral lists were incorrectly counted.

Since 2009, this has been the 23rd Mission organized by the Promo-LEX Association, involving more than 16,400 national observers. The Observation Mission of the new local elections of May 29, 2022is held with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

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For more information please contact:

Mariana Novac, program coordinator, Promo-LEX Association, Tel: 069339700