The presidential elections and the referendum in Moldova on the country’s future in the European Union were professionally managed and calm, without riots and visible attempts to influence, Czech MP Lucie Potůčková (STAN), who led the observation mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Moldova as a special coordinator, told ČTK in Europe (OSCE). The campaign that preceded the elections was also calm, quiet and unexpectedly little visible, Potůčková said. He attributes the narrow result of the referendum to Russian propaganda.
In the referendum, the Moldovans decided on the constitutional anchoring of their country’s future in the EU, pro-European President Maia Sanduová said. After counting all the votes, 50.46 percent of the voters voted in the referendum to amend the constitution. In the concurrent first round of the presidential election, Sandu got the most votes, but not an absolute majority. The second round of voting will take place in two weeks.
“We noted that the election day itself, the finale of the election process, was very professional and completely calm and orderly. (There were) no incidents of visible bribery taking place anywhere or large groups gathering to persuade voters, or riots. We haven’t noticed that at all,” said Potůčková.
The campaign as a whole was calm and very quiet, hardly visible by Czech standards. There were no billboards that people in the Czech Republic are used to, the campaign probably took place much more on social networks, Potůčková believes.
The first partial results indicated the defeat of the pro-European camp in the referendum, but then the result turned around.
“It was very balanced. We were very surprised because there were 13 political entities campaigning and of those 11 were campaigning to change the constitution in favor of joining the EU, while only two were against it. Yet it turned out the way it did. So there is a clear impact Russian propaganda, which was very strong,” pointed out Potůčková. She added that the police are already dealing with specific cases and the OSCE mission is also documenting them in its report.
The Czech MP states that it is interesting that 88 percent of the members of the electoral commissions were women, and the head of the electoral commission is also a woman. According to Potůčková, the composition of the commissions was reflected in the friendly atmosphere in the polling stations.
“In Moldova, for the first time, it was possible to vote by correspondence election, it was approved and introduced only half a year ago. The Moldovan diaspora abroad is almost one million people, and about 250,000 of them voted, but only 1,700 people pre-registered for the correspondence election and only returned the voting kit about 1,300 of them. It’s a completely marginal number,” says Potůčková about this type of vote.
According to Potůčková, it was to be expected that the diaspora would vote pro-European. Especially young people looking for work went abroad from a poor country.
The mission had 300 observers, and each of them visited ten to 15 polling stations, including those beyond the Dniester. For security reasons, no one was in Transnistria, but according to Potůčková, the mission was very large for the size of the country, where 1.5 million people voted. The mission, led by a Czech parliamentarian, prepared a 26-page preliminary final report messagepublished today by the OSCE.
Source: www.tyden.cz
