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The official turnout for early voting is reported at 35.77%, which is the record high for the parliamentary elections since 2008. Official turnout figures were much greater than those reported by the observers. Participation in early voting was encouraged by the authorities. Administrations of government-owned enterprises and institutions, as well as universities strongly advised voters to participate in early voting, maintained records of early voters and reported on the progress of early voting to local executive authorities. In some cases early voting was characterized by coercion, under threats of reprisals for refusing to vote early.

Promo-LEX observed that the opening and closing of polling stations on 03.11. was regular. One issue observed multiple times was that 27% of the PEBs continued to ignore the rule that stipulates that one member of the bureau is to display the ballots to all the participants in the counting process. Observed incidents were once again not of a significant nature, but included cases of unjustified and unauthorized persons being present within 100 m. of the PS as well as in the PS (25); presence of advertising materials, posters, electoral displays within 100 m. of the PS (21); and difficulties for the operation of the SIAS Elections system (20); organized transportation of voters (13). The results of parallel vote counting for the post of general mayor of Chisinau municipality confirmed the percentage offered by the CEC.

This coalition of election monitors in Moldova, including our member Promo-LEX, observed the following issues throughout the General local elections and by-elections: limitations of the freedom of voter information, the hindering of work of election management bodies, inconsistent candidate registration practices, a lack of impartial media, and the obstruction of the work of national observers.

Opposition candidates have been censored during their campaigning and have had their registrations revoked for criticising authorities, reports the election observation campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”. Many appeals of candidates whose registration was refused have yet to be considered despite the period for this having already passed and only one appeal was successful. Cases of abuse of administrative resources for election campaigning by the pro-government candidates have been recorded, as well as creating obstacles to independent and opposition candidates in their campaigning events.

The nomination and registration of candidates were not marked by any significant differences as compared to the previous parliamentary elections, concludes an interim report by the nation-wide campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”. The elections retained all of the negative things that were observed during previous campaigns: low representation of opposition in election commissions, lack of diversity as commissioners are representatives of the same organizations, observers denied to observe the verification procedures of submitted candidates' registration documents.

EMDS believes that the authorities failed to address shortcomings of the Election Code despite the repeated calls and recommendations of domestic organizations, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe and the OSCE/ODIHR. In this report, EMDS assessed the preparations to the 27 December 2019 Municipal Elections and found that: fair composition of election commissions, effective protection mechanisms of the election right, preventing illegal interference with the electoral process, improving regulations for registration of candidates and shortcomings in voter lists remain unaddressed.

The majority of observers were able to freely attend meetings of bodies that formed the TECs and DECs; only five of them reported obstacles at the first meetings of the commissions; as in the past, absence of legislative guarantees of the proportional representation in the election commissions of all political actors involved in the elections results in arbitrary and discriminatory treatment in respect of opposition parties and movements;