OSCE offers to organize elections in Pridnestrovie

Kimmo Kiljunen with ambassador William Hill, background (OSCE PA photo)

CHISINAU (Tiraspol Times) - The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, wants to organize and oversee democratic elections in Pridnestrovie.

Kimmo Kiljunen, head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly's Parliamentary Team on Moldova and a member of Finland's parliament, visited Chisinau and Tiraspol on 12-14 June 2006. In Tiraspol, Mr. Kiljunen met with the Speaker of the PMR Parliament, Yevgeny Shevchuk, and First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pridnestrovie, Ruslan Slobodeniuk, as well as with representatives of private media and civil society.

At the meeting, the sides touched upon the issue of a referendum to be held in Pridnestrovie aimed at establishing a vector for further political development of the republic. In this regard, Pridnestrovie's Ruslan Slobodeniuk drew attention to the international trend towards increased democracy, pointing out the recent Montenegro precedent.

OSCE committed to a democratic solution

Commenting on Moldova's unsettled territorial claim, Kiljunen re-iterated OSCE's commitment to a democratic solution of the conflict. Earlier, Kiljunen offered to have OSCE organize elections in Pridnestrovie in order to guarantee an outcome which would be recognized as free and fair by the international community.

" - The OSCE has experience not only in observing but also in running elections", said Kimmo Kiljunen, putting forward a proposal by which the OSCE could organize elections in Pridnestrovie. Such an idea was raised in a recent Ukrainian plan for settlement of the Moldova-Transdniestria conflict, presented in May 2005 and supported by a resolution in the Moldovan parliament adopted on 10 June 2005. The latter called, among other things, for elections in Pridnestrovie to be conducted under the aegis of an International Election Commission, mandated by the OSCE.

Ever since its declaration of independence in 1990, Pridnestrovie has regularly held elections for both local authorities, the national parliament and president, as well as a total of six referendums to let the citizens themselves decide on major issues of their country's future. There is disagreement as to whether these elections are free and fair. As a rule, those organizations which never sent any observers, and did not see how the process worked, declared the elections invalid from afar. Those who did send observers, and saw the process first-hand, consistently declared them free and democratic. (With info from: http://www.oscepa.dk/index.aspx?articleid=+539+539)