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The Federation of Student and Youth Organisations (FOST) held a roundtable with participation of representatives of electoral bodies, electoral competitors, civil society, etc. FOST representatives fear that the CEC had deliberately scheduled the early local elections for July 10, in order to limit the constitutional right of students accommodated in hostels (43,000 or about 10 percent) to participate in elections, since students must leave the hostels after July 1 till the new academic year.

Taking part in meeting were four candidates: Iuliana Gorea-Costin, Mihai Severovan, Dorin Chirtoaca, and Vladimir Guritenco. They accused the ruling party of using administrative resources and disfavouring certain contestants. They noted that the PCRM candidate has started breaching the provisions of the Election Code on publicity the first, but police deteriorated the adds and held the participating activists when other candidates followed her example and placed posters on power pillars.

The FOST-held action is part of efforts to solve the problem of “the vote of students”. The federation seeks a solution to the problem of residence of students in settlements where they study, and demands the right to cast votes in the residential place. This right could be obtained through amendment of the election legislation, but FOST intends to raise the public awareness until then.

The participants in the roundtable also discussed the problem of police campaigns aimed to identify non-residents, fearing that these campaigns could aim to discourage students to stay in Chisinau in order to cast their votes on July 10.

The Chisinau Municipal Council completed 29 electoral bureaus in the Moldovan capital with new members, saying that their predecessors have refused their membership to the electoral offices (14 persons invoked health-related causes, 18 from personal reasons, 7 people left for holidays, one person left the country, and another one withdrew from family reasons). As many as 284 electoral offices have been opened for the July 10 early local elections in the Chisinau municipality, including 234 in the city. The electoral offices of polling stations have 2,302 members. (By BASA-press)