[0]

International election observers, seen here at vote counting, declare the independence referendum democratic; transparent

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - "Free and fair," was the verdict from independent Western election monitors after the successful outcome of Sunday's independence referendum in the Pridnestrovie; a still-unrecognized state also known as Transnistria.

174 international observers participated in monitoring the Sunday referendum in the breakaway republic. They said that they did not register any procedural violations during the secret balloting.

Unable to obtain support from governments of the European Union for the democratic voting process, Pridnestrovie's election commission instead turned to a broad range of democracy promoting non-governmental organizations for help with supervising the referendum.

" - The British-Helsinki Human Rights Group, two non-governmental organizations from Moldova, 12 representatives of the United States, Great Britain and France under the auspices of the Russian CEC, as well as representatives of Victor Yanukovich's Party of Regions were observing the referendum", election chairman Peter Denisenko announced in Tiraspol, Pridnestrovie's capital.

NGOs from Italy, Israel, Belgium, Poland and Germany were also present. In addition, MPs from more countries, including Russia and Ukraine, participated as observers at the plebiscite.

A clean bill of health

Moldova and the West said they would not recognize the referendum, just as they have refused to acknowledge the Russian-speaking region's de facto independence. Moldova's Foreign Minister Andrei Statan called it a "political farce" that won't change anything, according to a statement carried by state news agency Moldpres.

Some 130 observers from non-government organizations of CIS and European countries called this position “a policy of double standards”.

" - If the EU countries do not recognize this referendum, they do not recognize democracy," said the head of the Italian delegation, Dr Stefano Vernole, adding that "the voting process was held at a high level, in accordance with democratic principles."

The referendum was conducted in strict compliance with universally recognized principles and norms of organization and conductance of democratic elections, most of which are applicable to democratic referenda as well, as stated in the joint report issued by a group of accredited observers representing 11 European organizations.

The observers confirm that no violations of the principles of universal, equal-right and direct suffrage during the secret vote took place. Nor did the observers find any direct or indirect restrictions of the suffrage on the principles of race, ethnicity, sex, language, origin, property or official status, place of residence, religion, convictions, affiliation to public organizations; a requirement for meeting the 2005 United Nations guidelines under which they had previously agreed to conduct their monitoring mission.

The observers, who visited each 5th polling station, reported that the voting was organized in an orderly manner and in properly equipped booths, established to ensure the secrecy of the voting process. The observers also said residents were provided with possibilities - without any pressure, violence, threat of using force or any other unlawful influence of any kind - to decide concerning their participation or non-participation in the referendum, and equal legal conditions for participation in the referendum were created.

The documents' authors stated no influence or pressure was observed from any government organs, be they national or local and municipal governments.

The statement was signed by Tatyana Reznik of the Central European Group of Political Monitoring (Germany), Alexander Gerand of the International Center for Electoral Systems (ICES, headquartered in Israel), Stephano Vernole for the Italian delegation; Jean-Pierre Vandersimmsen of the Movement in Support of Democracy in France (MEDD); Fabrice Beaur for the French delegation; Andrei Lucian of the Ajuta Cives Human Rights Organization (Moldova); Alla Fedoristova of the Independent Human Rights Center of Gagauzia, Moldova; Andrei Tarna of the Patria-Moldova party; and several others.

In addition to the official report of these observers, 40 observers from the group "Ours" issued a separate statement hailing the transparency and democratic conduct of Sunday's poll. Simultaneously, an unspecified number of unaccredited and unknown "mobile observers" (as they called themselves), apparently working on behalf of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Moldova issued a separate press release in Chisinau claiming grave infringements and irregularities which directly contradicted all of the main points noted by the real observers and by foreign journalists covering the entire process first-hand.

Notably, the group had not applied for accreditation and none of the officially observers had seen any representatives or heard anything about the group until they issued their statement Monday. Likewise, no one among any of of the 215 journalists who also monitored the vote throughout the day could report any knowledge of the group, leading one German reporter to state categorically that "they were not here. Period. They wrote that press release in Chisinau out of thin air, just to sow doubts over what all of us could see was clearly a clean and well-executed voting process."

Record turnout

With turnout normally between 50% and 60% in the country, election officials were surprised at the record turnout for Sunday's independence referendum. A massive 78.6% of the electorate showed up to vote, testifying - said election staffers - that the independence of the republic is an issue close to the heart of the majority of voters.

An overwhelming majority of the voters who took part in Sunday's referendum voted for independence of the heretofore-unrecognized Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica. Only 2.3% voted against independence of the region, electoral commission's chairman Peter Denisenko announced at a news conference here.

Journalists from news agency Infotag who were in Pridnestrovie on election day reported that they "were convinced that the voters' activity was very high," nothing that they saw queues at some polling stations even though the election officials were working quickly.

The predominantly Russian-speaking area had existed as a small autonomous region in the Soviet Union before Stalin seized Moldova from Romania and united them with Pridnestrovie to form a Soviet republic also known as Moldova.

Unlike the rest of Moldova, which was part of Romania until 1940 and where most residents speak Romanian, the thin slice of Pridnestrovie has always identified more with Russia and has a majority Slav population. In Moldova, by contrast, Slavs only make up 14% of the inhabitants. (With information from Infotag)