alegeri.md

Serghei Buzadji has been officially withdrawn from the electoral race for the office of Bashkan. Today, the autonomy’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) has approved his application of 10 March. On 3 March, Buzadji accepted the proposal of candidate Irina Vlah to “consolidate efforts.”

Thus, out of the 12 candidates registered by the CEC, only 10 contestants for the office of Bashkan have remained. Earlier, Member of the People’s Assembly Oleg Caici had also fallen out of the race. // gagauzmedia.md

Today, the Central Electoral Commission of Gagauzia has examined the application of the head of the Comrat district, Ivan Sari, concerning inaccuracies in the lists of voters. Following long discussions, the CEC decided to send a letter to the district bureau and to recommend all electoral bureaus to verify the quality of these lists. // gagauzmedia.md

For the elections of the Bashkan of Gagauzia, 106,867 ballots are to be printed. Out of them, 1,527 ballots in the Gagauz language, 1,139 in the State language, and 104,201 ballots in the Russian language. According to the CEC of Gagauzia Chairman Valentin Cara, every electoral district presented information about their view on the number of ballots in the Russian, Gagauz, and Romanian languages.

According to a decision of the CEC, the district electoral councils of the Gagauz autonomy will receive ballots on 21 March before noon. // gagauzinfo.md

Some media outlets in Gagauzia are showing preference for certain candidates for the office of Bashkan. It can be seen in the results of the interim report on monitoring the elections, prepared by the Comrat Youth Center “Piligrim-Demo” together with the Association of Independent Press (AIP). The monitoring had been conducted between 16 February and 1 March and it concerned public radio and television of Gagauzia, Vesti Gagauzii newspaper (a publication of the region’s Executive Committee), and two news portals — gagauzinfo.md and gagauzmedia.md.

AIP Executive Director Petru Macovei said that the three media outlets funded from public money had generally complied with the requirements for the media coverage of the campaign and with the Journalist’s Code of Ethics, but they had not paid enough attention to voter education. // IPN

The autonomy’s Central Electoral Commission has published the financial report with the information about the amounts of money in the electoral funds of candidates for Bashkan.

From 2 to 7 March, the bank accounts of Nicolai Dudoglo and Irina Vlah were supplemented with 45 thousand lei. Dudoglo introduced that amount himself, while Irina Vlah’s electoral fund was supplemented by various individuals. Valerii Ianioglo, Ruslan Garbali, Alexandr Stoianoglo, and Dmitrii Croitor, who had earlier introduced money into their electoral funds, have worked without money on their bank accounts this week.

Thus, since the start of the electoral campaign candidates’ overall funds have been as follows:

• Irina Vlah — MDL 354,840
• Nicolai Dudoglo — MDL 101,990
• Alexandr Stoianoglo — MDL 100,000
• Ruslan Garbali — MDL 62,300
• Dmitrii Croitor — MDL 53,050
• Valerii Ianioglo — MDL 39,000

 // gagauzmedia.md

Candidates promote their platforms and conduct electoral campaigning the way they can, choosing the allies and using the political dividends that they find necessary. Nevertheless, it is important to compete fairly, without attacks on the person or defamation, said candidate for Bashkan Oleg Garizan for the IPN news agency.

According to Oleg Garizan, if he wins, he will promote the idea of maintaining the Gagauz language in the region and will strive for inclusion of the Taraclia district into the TAU Gagauz Yeri. The external vector of Gagauzia under the governance of Oleg Garizan will be focused on the Customs Union, Russian Federation, and Turkey. The candidate’s priority is improvement of relations between the Executive Committee and the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia. // IPN