11 Moldovan Candidates: On 'Election Silence' Day, the Country Prepares for Presidential Elections and an EU Accession Referendum
Today, 19 October 2024, is the ‘day of silence’ in the Republic of Moldova before the next presidential election and the republican constitutional referendum on EU accession on 20 October 2024, Tribuna reports.
Yesterday was the last day when election campaigning was allowed.
There are 11 people running for the presidency of the Republic of Moldova: four women and seven men, five independent candidates nominated by a ‘group of citizens’ and six nominated by political parties. Ziarul de Gardă analysed the careers, wealth and controversies of the people who were registered as candidates for the presidency of the Republic of Moldova. The article is available here.
Among the candidates is the incumbent President Maia Sandu, who is running for the third time. She is currently nominated as a candidate of PAS in the 20 October elections, running for a second presidential term.
A total of 2,061 national and international observers will monitor the republican constitutional referendum and the presidential elections in Moldova on 20 October 2024. Yesterday, the CEC accredited the last observers who will monitor polling stations this Sunday.
Out of the total number of 1277 national observers, 5 represent 5 civil society organisations. Most of the observers were accredited at the request of the Promo-LEX Association. At the same time, the CEC accredited 784 international observers. They represent 24 accredited diplomatic missions in the Republic of Moldova (186 people), 14 foreign electoral bodies (24 people), 2 international associations (4 people), the OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission will be represented by 253 people, ENEMO - 49 people, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine - 11 people, the European Platform for Democratic Elections - 16 people, Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation - 3 persons, International Organisation of la Francophonie - 6 persons, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly - 51 persons, European Parliament - 16 persons, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe - 32 persons, SILBA - 36 persons, IFES - 15 persons, IRI - 37 persons, National Democratic Institute, Chisinau Chapter - 36 persons, IDEA - 3 persons, General Counsel of Turkey - 6 persons.
The Central Election Commission (CEC) has decided to organise 234 polling stations abroad for the republican constitutional referendum and presidential elections in the Republic of Moldova on 20 October 2024, which is almost 100 more polling stations than in the last presidential elections. Among the 37 countries, Italy will have the most polling stations - 60, followed by Germany - 26, France - 20, the United Kingdom - 17, and the United States and Romania - 16 each. The smallest number of polling stations will be opened in the Russian Federation. Despite the fact that, according to the CEC, the largest number of pre-registrations for voting were made in the Russian Federation, with more than 8,000 applications, two polling stations will be opened in Moscow and three more in the rest of the Federation. For comparison, in the last two elections, the parliamentary in 2021 and the presidential in 2020, 17 polling stations were opened in Russia.
For the citizens of the Republic of Moldova living in the Transnistrian region, 30 polling stations will be opened in 21 settlements on the right bank of the Dniester and Dubasari district.