The OSCE did not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness of Sandu — PDS in the elections — Socialists

The OSCE did not want to turn a blind eye to the lawlessness of the authorities of Maia Sandu and the PDS (ruling Action and Solidarity party) during the presidential elections in Moldova. This was announced at a briefing today, October 29, by the Deputy Speaker of the parliament from Party of Socialists Vlad Batryncha and member of the PSRM Executive Committee Olga Chebotar.

They presented numerous violations during the election campaign and on the day of the vote, which were recorded by international experts.

Batryncha noted that according to OSCE experts, frequent changes made to the Electoral Code shortly before the elections without proper consultations "affected the consistency of electoral legislation and reduced legal certainty."

"In other words, the authorities changed the rules before the election race in their own interests in order to promote their candidate. These changes have not been discussed or agreed upon and run counter to international practice," the socialist stressed.

According to him, the OSCE report also noted that the legal framework of the referendum (held on the same day as the first round of voting), which dealt with the issue of allowing Parliament to integrate EU rights and obligations into national legislation without the need for further constitutional reforms, has certain shortcomings, including the lack of guarantees against misuse of state resources. In other words, the plebiscite does not fully comply with international standards and OSCE commitments.

"We are very pleased with the fact that the OSCE noticed that the authorities used the administrative resource to promote Maya Sandu. They recognized that these are illegal and unequal conditions between the candidates of the government and the rest of the participants in the election race," Batryncha added.

In addition, it was not clear to the experts in what status Sandu was participating in the election campaign. In particular, their media monitoring showed that the incumbent president received the most coverage in news programs and editorials both as an official and as a candidate, without making a clear distinction between these two roles. In this regard, the OSCE confirms that "there was an abuse of administrative resources during the election campaign."

"The OSCE report is freely available and everyone can get acquainted with it. We are pleased that the OSCE did not want to turn a blind eye to the lawlessness of the authorities," Vlad Batryncha concluded.

Recall, the second round of presidential elections in Moldova will be held on November 3. The incumbent head of state Maia Sandu, who was nominated by the Action and Solidarity party, and former Prosecutor General Alexander Stoyanoglo, who is backed by the Party of Socialists, passed into it. The opposition claims that the authorities are preparing to falsify the results and calls on the protest electorate of other political forces to consolidate and support their candidate.