Monitoring→Politics→Transnistrian Conflict

About 8,000 Moldovan citizens residing in the Transnistrian region voted in the Moldovan parliamentary elections on 6 March, according to the preliminary data from the Central Electoral Commission (CEC). According to the CEC decision of 18 February regarding the method of voting of the Moldovan citizens from the Eastern districts of Moldova, these voted at nine polling stations located on the right bank of Nistru River. They were included in supplementary voter rolls and dropped their ballots into special ballot boxes. According to the preliminary CEC results, about 50% of the Transnistrian voters opted for the Bloc “Moldova Democrata”, about 30% for the Communist Party, about 8% for the PCDP and about 6% for SDPM and the Bloc “Patria-Rodina” each.

The Coalition for Free and Fair Elections 2005 reported a number of problems related to the participation of Transnistrian voters in the elections. Thus, many of them were not informed properly about the place of the voting; the owners of Soviet passports which did not bear the mention “citizen of the Republic of Moldova”, as well as the students residing in Varnita village, were allowed to vote at the discretion of the Chair of the precinct; multiple cases of the failure of poll workers to apply the stamp “voted” in the identity documents of the voters were registered. Moreover, due to the large turnout of Transnistrian voters, queues formed at some polling stations and many voters did not manage to vote.

The Union of Moldovans from Transnistria, a Transnistrian non-governmental organisation that organised the transportation of the Transnistrian voters to the polling stations on the right side of Nistru, accused the Moldovan authorities of obstructing the voting rights of the Moldovan citizens living in Transnistria, and claimed that out of the 14,800 that were provided with transportation, only some were let to cast their votes.

Earlier, following an address of the Bloc “Moldova Democrata”, CEC conditioned the opening of polling stations in Transnistria with the observation by the Transnistrian authorities of a number of conditions that would have guaranteed a free and fair electoral process in the region. In his official reply, the head of the so-called Transnistrian foreign ministry, Valeri Litkai, qualified the CEC address as “yet another provocation on behalf of the Moldovan authorities launched for reasons” because the observation of the CEC conditions on the Transnistrian territory would have involved electoral spending from the budget of a “foreign country” and as such would have run counter to the electoral laws of Moldova. At the same time, Litkai called upon the CEC to ensure the access of Moldovan citizens residing in Transnistria to the polling stations in the “border” areas, including in the security area.

The official press and the so-called “civil society” from Tiraspol assumed an active part in the electoral campaign for the legislative elections in the Republic of Moldova on 6 March by launching a massive campaign against the ruling party and in particular its leader, President Voronin. Thus, three of “the key” non-governmental organisations in the region — the Union of Moldovans, the Union of Russian Communities and the Union of Ukrainians — created a so-called Committee for the Support of Democratic Elections in Moldova. Accusing President Voronin of a series of “inhumane actions” against the “Transnistrian people”, such as the political and diplomatic isolation of Transnistria, the economic blockade and the blockade of the negotiations mechanism, the Committee has called upon the “Transnistrian civil society” to support “the democratic forces from the neighbour country”, but has not specified which ones.

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