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Another setback for defeated parliamentary candidate Marina Smirnova, this time in PMR's Supreme Court.

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - Defeated parliamentary hopeful Marina Smirnova, the daughter-in-law of Pridnestrovie's President Igor Smirnov, lost a case at the Supreme Court.

Marina Smirnova, the wife of Igor Smirnov's younger son Oleg Smirnov, is CEO of one of the largest banks in the region, Gazprombank. She also stood as a candidate in a by-election to the Supreme Council, Pridnestrovie's parliament, but lost and immediately claimed that this was as a result of fraud committed by the winning candidate and his supporters.
However, Parliament and the election authorities accepted the voting results as valid, but Smirnova disagreed and took her case to the courts.

In its latest ruling, the Supreme Court overturned an earlier decision by the Slobozya district court while at the same time ruling that Marina Smirnova's case had no merit since a candidate cannot challenge the registration of another candidate.

In the span of the past four weeks, this is now the fourth case that Smirnova has lost at the level of the Election Commission, district courts and the Supreme Court.

Case lacks merit, said court

According to official results issued by Pridnestrovie's Central Election Commission, opposition candidate Valery Ponomarenko won the by-election with 70% of the vote total. Marina Smirnova finished second in a race between a total of five candidates, getting support from just over 16% of the voters.

After losing a June 10 by-election for parliament, Marina Smirnova accused the winner - Valery Ponomarenko - of campaign violations and of having bribed six voters. Failing to overturn his win, she retroactively sought to have his candidate registration withdrawn.
On 18 June 2007, the Slobozya District Court threw out Marina Smirnova's case for lack of merit.

Simultaneous, Marina Smirnova also challenged the recognition of the election results. That case was filed on 14 June, and has so far undergone ten hearings with the participation of all candidates, the Central Election Commission and chairmen of voting districts. Parliament has already accepted Ponomarenko as a full and sitting member and he took part in the formation of a new opposition party - along with two other parliamentarians - last week.

Prior to the June 10 vote, Marina Smirnova had originally gone to court against another candidate, Alexander Radchenko. Since Radchenko and his party, the Social Democrats, advocate a common federation state with neighboring Moldova, his competitor Marina Smirnova sought to have his campaign broadcast barred on the grounds that it violated the territorial integrity of PMR (Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica). The authorities ruled against her. Following this first loss of Smirnova, the Radchenko campaign went forward as planned. The ruling allowed Radchenko to not only participate in the election on equal terms but also to publish his campaign speech for free on PMR's state television. He used his free TV time on the public channel to rail against Marina Smirnova and her father-in-law, the country's president, Igor Smirnov whom he strongly criticized for his strong pro-independence position.

See also:
» Smirnov candidate defeated in by-election for Transnistria parliament [1]
» Smirnova loses in PMR court to anti-independence opposition candidate [2]