Gagauz Legislative Elections Go Well

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 CHISINAU 000295

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E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM PGOV KDEM MD
SUBJECT: Gagauz Legislative Elections Go Well

REF: Chisinau 0174

Sensitive but Unclassified. Please Protect Accordingly.


1. (SBU) Summary: With international observers and a strong
American contingent watching widely and carefully, March 16
elections for the 161 candidates contesting 35 positions in the
Gagauz autonomous region's People's Assembly proceeded for the most
part without incident. Problems that did occur were relatively
minor and included a shortage of ballots at a few polling stations,
showboating local mayors, apathetic human-rights observers, and some
inconsistencies in applying the rules. Monday-morning results
showed that 17 of the 35 contests will go to runoff elections on
March 30. End summary.

Numbers and Procedures on a Sunny Spring Day
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2. (SBU) A sunny spring day and wide interest in elections helped
boost the turnout to 64.8% of registered voters. The voting lists
at the beginning of the day contained 85,121 names; 6,615 voters not
on the lists who could prove residence in a constituency were added
to the rolls during polling hours. In the 18 constituencies where
candidates won outright with 50 percent of the vote or more,
Communist Party candidates and Communist-supporting independents won
six seats, and independents supporting Governor Formuzal won four.
True independents succeeded in five districts. The Democratic Party
(PD) gained two seats, and Ravnopravie gained one. (The last three
may declare themselves as supporters of Formuzal, according to
Formuzal, who predicted that he would get a working coalition in the
People's Assembly.) A total of 77 international observers,
including 16 U.S. Embassy staff in eight deployments, and teams from
the Turkish and Polish embassies, the OSCE, the Council of Europe
and several NGOs, ensured that every polling station was visited at
least once. We visited 56 of the 62 in operation.

A Busy, Long Day for Mostly Professional Poll Staff
-------------- --------------


3. (SBU) Overall, monitors expressed a positive view of the
professionalism of polling staff, who began the day by observing
empty, clear-plastic ballot boxes before polls opened at 0700, and
ended it by supervising the count after polls closed at 2100 hours.
During the long hours of voting, registration staff checked off
voters against lists, added voters not on the list who could prove
residence, and generally observed the rule that only citizens with
valid official identification-even if it was a worn-looking Soviet
passport-were allowed to vote. The U.S. teams observed several
incidents in which hopeful voters were turned away for lack of
proper official identification, even though they were well known to
the poll-station registrars. The strict-constructionist approach
was on display in one small town where officials ruled, in
accordance with the law, that a mobile ballot box could not be taken
to a voter who was hospitalized a few kilometers outside of
Gagauzia.


4. (SBU) Some of the problems we observed were relatively minor,
such as floor-length curtains in the voting booths, which could hide
more than one voter. However, we did note that poll workers for the
most part were assiduous in enforcing the one-voter-at-a-time rule.
In voting places, we observed several voters who were given ballots,
even though they lacked official papers. (Note: International
observers have divided opinions on this practice, some praising it
for its inclusionist, enfranchising approach, and others saying that
the law must be obeyed strictly. End note.) In several places,
voters complained that their ballots fluttered open after being
dropped into the meter-high transparent ballot box, thus potentially
compromising the secrecy of the ballot. (Note: Voters are supposed
to fold their ballots four ways, but rarely did so. End note.)


5. (SBU) More serious problems included candidates lingering in or
at the entrance to the voting areas, one instance of a poll worker
electioneering outside a polling station, and the occasional
presence of a policeman outside the building (usually a school or
cultural center) where voting took place. One policeman said he was
guarding the entrance to prevent the opposition (i.e.,
non-Communists) from bribing voters. Several mayors were observed
gladhanding and schmoozing in polling rooms, but observers assessed
that behavior more as an attention-getting device than as an attempt
to sway voters. Mostly university-aged observers from the NGO LADOM
(the League for the Protection of Human Rights),who had been
trained and deployed to every polling station by the Eurasia
Foundation, often seemed apathetic, and content merely to watch
events from across the room. In a few high-turnout constituencies,
too few ballots were printed to handle the influx of overseas
workers, including 98 who hired buses to drive in from Moscow. The
law allows the printing of ballots to accommodate only 101 percent
of the listed voters.


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6. (SBU) The most visible problem, which the Central Election
Commission publicly condemned, was a radio statement by Formuzal,
who, in addition to anodyne comments urging people to go to the
polls and carry identification, also encouraged voters to elect a
People's Assembly that would cooperate with the executive.


7. (SBU) Comment: Overall, it is clear that citizens knew their
voting rights, and exercised them freely and at a commendable
turnout level. The fact that we and the rest of the international
community were watching no doubt limited problems so that the great
majority of the people, almost all of the time, could exercise their
electoral rights. (Note: We will not be issuing a public
statement. End note.) With barely half the contests decided in the
first round, we will be there again on March 30, to encourage
Gagauzia in particular, and Moldova in general, to continue to
observe good campaign and electoral practices.

Kirby