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Nineteen observers accredited by the Representative Office of Eurasia Foundation in Moldova will monitor the July 29 elections at the polling stations opened at the Embassies of Moldova in Moscow, Bucharest, Rome, Bologna, London, Paris, Athens, Brussels, and Washington DC, quoting a communiqué from the Foundation. The given polling stations were selected owing to the high turnout of voters at the previous elections. The monitors will supervise all the electoral procedures, including the opening and closing of polling stations, the voting process and the vote counting process. On the Election Day, the Representative Office of Eurasia in Moldova will regularly provide information about the voting process at the mentioned stations. When the polling stations are closed, the monitoring results will be published on the website of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections — Coalition 2009. The election monitoring abroad will be carried out with the financial support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the United States Agency for International Development. (Info-Prim Neo)

ENEMO (European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations) Mission will send more than 100 monitors to the July 29 parliamentary elections in Moldova. ENEMO consist of 18 nongovernmental organizations from Central-Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. The delegation will be composed of 6 long-term observers and almost 100 short-term observers from 12 CIS and Central-Eastern European countries. The ENEMO observers have extensive election experience and always follow international standards, and the laws of the host country, ENEMO says in a communiqué. ENEMO was founded in 2001 and has experience in monitoring elections in Albania, Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. (Info-Prim Neo)

If a parliamentary elections in Moldova were held on nearest Sunday, 6 parties may enter the new Parliament — the incumbent ruling Party of Communists (PCRM), the Liberal Party (PL), the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM), the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM), the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN), as per the findings of the Vox Populi 2009 opinion poll carried out in the period July 11–20 by the Moldovan Association of Sociologists and Demographers. Namely, the PCRM would win 32.6%, PL — 14.9%, PLDM — 10.8%, PDM — 10.7%, AMN — 7.8%, and PSD — 5.2%. Over 11% of the 1,548 interviewed persons failed to answer concretely. Over 62% respondents stated they would necessarily go to the polls on July 29, though only a quarter of the citizens are interested in politics as such, and 15% stated they did not care whatever. Over 88% respondents said that on April 5 they had found their names in the voter rolls drawn up in their native localities, and 7% stated they had not. (Infotag)

The Independent Journalism Center (IJC) uncloaks message distorting techniques used by Moldova 1 and other broadcasters with national coverage, in a new monitoring report compiled from July 13 to 19. At a news conference on July 23, IJC interim director Nadine Gogu stated that the public stations Moldova 1 and Radio Moldova selectively apply the principles of impartial and balanced coverage of the election campaign. The pluralism of info sources is insured by Moldova 1 and Radio Moldova in all the stories containing accusations against the PCRM. The Moldova 1 journalists offer the right to defense to the PCRM representatives, instead they do not ask for the opinion of the politicians accused by the PCRM, the expert says. Referring to the NIT TV station, executive director of the Independent Press Association Petru Macovei has stated: “Our researches show that NIT’s newscasts violate absolutely all the ethical norms, the regulation on media coverage of election campaign adopted by the Central Electoral Commission, and very many articles from the Audiovisual Code.” “Certainly, the Audiovisual Coordinating Council’s conduct as a regulating body is below any criticism in this race and the previous one,” Macovei said. (Info-Prim Neo)

Six television stations — Moldova 1, NIT, Pro TV, EU TV, TV7 and N4 — were warned by the Audiovisual Coordinating Council (CCA) over non-observance of the pluralism of opinion in newscasts. During their news bulletins, they will have to broadcast the Council’s warning that contains a message about the conditions of observing the pluralism of opinion and of providing airtime and objective information. The warnings were issued after the CCA compiled a monitoring report of the TV stations in question carried out since the start of the election campaign. Dinu Ciocan, head of the CCA’s Monitoring Division, said that the number of electoral news items has increased compared with the previous campaign. But a large part of the news stories did not contain the second or third source. (Info-Prim Neo)

Candidates for MP of the Christian Democratic People’s Party (PPCD) consider that the national health insurance sector should be reformed. They promise to cheapen the medicines in drugstores and to organize teams of doctors that will provide free consultations in rural medical units, kindergartens and schools at least once in two months. The PPCD candidates say that in Moldova there is medicine for dignitaries and medicine for the rest of the population, and there is a great difference between them. The PPCD candidates stated that the medical institutions in Moldova’s villages and districts are in a deplorable condition. The young candidates also said that the medications go to drugstores through intermediaries, not directly from importers and therefore their price is by up to 60% larger. (Info-Prim Neo)

The Party of Communists condemns the extremely biased attitude of the radio station “Vocea Basarabiei” (VB) towards electoral debates, reads a press statement by the party. According to PCRM, despite complaints and appeals raised to competent organs, the radio station “VB” keeps violating the electoral legislation flagrantly, advantaging some electoral contestants and disadvantaging the PCRM. “This radio station constantly breaches the Election Code, does not ensure equality to electoral runners, violates the format of debates, which are not focused on the electoral campaign only, etc,” reads the PCRM statement. In these conditions, PCRM will not participate in this VB-organised farce as long as all shortcomings related to legal organisation and conduct of debates are not eliminated, and will signal these actions to competent bodies. (Moldpres)

We, those who guard the civil awareness, we say a decisive “No” to destructive forces and have a single alternative — to vote the Party of Communists at the July 29 elections. On behalf of the Union of Veterans “Sfintul Gheorghe Biruitorul”, the statement was released at a news conference by organisation head Victor Alergus. According to “Sfintul Gheorghe Biruitorul” members, after 18 years of independence Moldova entered an unprecedented political crisis which endangers the supreme state values won by people. Alergus is sure that all the statements on national interest released by liberal parties during the election campaign are nothing but attempts to reach petty goals for a group interest. (Moldpres)

The budgetary subventions are monopolized by the large parties and this affects the equality of chances for the electoral players, says the study “Assessing Financing of Political Parties and Election Campaigns”, which was presented by IDIS “Viitorul” on July 23. According to the author Sergiu Lipcean, this spring’s polls confirm that the financial resources of the electoral contestants were largely concentrated in the hands of several small groups of persons that usually top the electoral lists. “The financing from the state budget does not ensure equal chances for participation in the political life. The regulations about the budget allocations intended for political parties favor the ruling party, which benefits from over 50% of the budgetary subventions,” the study says. The cost of the early elections per capita is 50.89 lei, while for a cast vote — 84.57 lei. The study “Assessing Financing of Political Parties and Election Campaigns in Moldova” contains recommendations concerning the financing of political parties, like: to reduce the ceiling of donations to parties, to allow the Moldovans that are abroad to make political donations and to improve the access to public financial resources for new and small parties. (Info-Prim Neo)

The electoral contestants are allowed to use state symbols as the buildings of the Parliament, Government, Presidency, historic personalities in their ads. The Supreme Court of Justice judged in favor of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM), which had sued this ban impelled by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC). “We considered illegal article 36 of the CEC’s regulation and sued it at the Supreme Court of Justice, where we have won,” said Sergiu Sirbu, the PCRM’s representative at the CEC, at its sitting on July 23. The CEC members have been surprised at the court’s decision adopted on July 22 and asked Sirbu for a copy. (Info-Prim Neo)

The Civic Control Coalition 2009 has expressed strong doubts about the authenticity of financial report by the Liberal Party, presenting how much the party had invested in the ongoing election campaign. Coalition Executive Director Alexander Barbov told a news conference today the amount reported by PL to the Central Electoral Commission yesterday — 61 thousand lei, or US$6 thousand equivalent — “seems more than just strange. Commercial banks are showing that up to 700 thousand euros have come to the Liberal Party’s accounts during last several weeks alone. Besides this, the Liberals have produced many banners, spots, electoral boards and screens made in an excellent, expensive way”. In his words, the Liberal Party uses administrative resources in its campaigning. The Coalition carried out a monitoring of the news programs of the Moldova-1 public television channel, and, in his words, “This channel meets its commitment to objective and impartial covering of electoral contestants’ activities”. (Infotag)

During the 8 years in state power, the ruling Party of Communists has grossly violated over 30 articles of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, maintains Liberal Democratic Party leader Vlad Filat. In his words, the Communists have discredited fundamental economy principles such as the market, free economic initiative, fair competition, and many others. “By the Constitution, our state is based on the unity of the people of the Republic of Moldova, which is a common and indivisible motherland for all its citizens. However, the Communists have constantly split the society, disseminating hatred among society groups for the only sake of earning political dividends”, stated the PLDM leader. He believes competent state organs “must take appropriate measures against the party that violates the Constitution so grossly”. (Infotag)

Moldova Noastra (Our Moldova) Alliance (AMN) says the Party of Communists (PCRM) will try to rig elections by using hundreds of thousands of fake ballots, printed in Israel. A similar accusation was earlier done by the National Liberal Party (PNL). Serafim Urecheanu told a news conference on July 23 he had learnt the information from an employee of the state company “Registru”. Urecheanu claims “Registru” manufactured 10,000 attachments to Moldovan ID cards, with which people will vote on July 29. Urecheanu has also asserted that PCRM has published promotional leaflets with AMN symbol on them, by which voters are urged to vote AMN in exchange for 200 lei, thus discrediting the AMN image. The PCRM’s representative at the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), Sergei Sirbu, has disavowed the AMN’s charges. Sarbu said the ballots are printed only by two state printing houses in Moldova, are taken to the electoral bureaus and then to the polling stations, under the strict supervision of several persons, including observers and representatives of opposition parties. As for the ID attachments, they have numbers and can be checked out, he said. At AMN’s news conference, the deputy president of the European Liberal-Democrat Reforming Party, Jeanette Baljeu, announced her support for the AMN in this race. (Info-Prim Neo)