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As analysts expected, Igor Smirnov - whose personal popularity is high - won an easy re-election (file photo)

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - President Igor Smirnov won re-election by a wide margin Sunday, in an election which analysts and the foreign press had already expected would be handily won by the highly popular independence leader.

The incumbent president of Pridnestrovie, Igor Smirnov, won 82.4% of Sunday's vote, the official election commission of said Monday, citing preliminary results.

Smirnov has served three consecutive terms as president of the post-Soviet de facto independent republic, where he organized a plebiscite in September that reaffirmed the drive for independence and closer ties with Russia.

The commission said turnout was 66.1%; elections require a turnout of more than 50% to be valid.

The other three contenders for the leadership - editor of a Communist newspaper, Nadezhda Bondarenko, opposition journalist Andrey Safonov, and Peter Tomaily, a lawmaker - garnered 8.1%, 3.9%, and 2.1% of the vote respectively, the commission said.

Safonov and Bondarenko have been in opposition to the Moscow-backed leader, accusing him of corruption, non-democratic practices, and lack of progress in talks with Moldova, which seeks to gain control over the region despite the fact that the area has historically never been part of Moldova, and has an overwhelmingly Slav population in contrast to Moldova's majority of ethnic Romanians.

The largely Russian-speaking Pridnestrovie - also known internationally as Transdniester or Transnistria - broke away from Moldova in 1990, a move which was followed by a failed Moldovan invasion and bloody military conflict in 1992. The truce has been maintained by a multilateral team of peacekeepers and international mediators.

Delegation of MPs: "Election in PMR was democratic"

" - Our delegation found no serious violations at the presidential election in Transdnestr," Member of the Russian State Duma Natalya Narochnitskaya is quoted as saying by Regnum at a news conference in Tiraspol on December 11. She led a delegation of Russian MPs in an election observer mission in which Polish and Ukrainian MPs also participated.

Narochnitskaya also added: "The secrecy of voting was observed, coverage by media corresponded with appropriate standards. Thus, one can surely say that the election was democratic, and that means that Transdnestr once again proved its validity and the right for independence. We shall publish our report as observers in media and present it."

Local voters backed Igor Smirnov by a wide margin, seeing him as the best guarantee against being absorbed into Moldova against their will.

" - I will certainly go to a polling station to back Igor Nikolayevich [Smirnov]," said Valentina, 53, a teacher, as reported by Reuters. "The election is a festive day for us.

" - For all these years he preserved stability and is backed by Moscow. What else do we need?" she said, voting at a school in Tiraspol, the capital of the new and emerging country.

The unrecognized country, which meets the requirements for statehood under international law, has not yet had its independence recognized internationally. Since March of this year, it has been under what it calls a trade blockade, since Ukraine backed Moldova earlier this year by banning exports without customs clearance in Moldova. The move dealt a severe blow to Pridnestrovie's struggling economy. (With information from RIA Novosti, Regnum)

See also:
» European observers give high marks to clean elections in Transdniester [1]

On the web:
» British election observers' PMR Presidential Elections Report [2]