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Communist presidential contender Nadezhda Bondarenko, the first-ever female candidate for president of PMR (campaign photo)

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - Nadezhda Bondarenko, the losing Communist Party candidate for president, congratulated the winner Igor Smirnov with his victory and conceded that she had lost in a free and fair election fight.

Bondarenko, the first-ever female candidate for president of the internationally unrecognized Pridneskovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica, came in second in a four-candidate race, beating opposition journalist Andrey Safonov and free market entrepreneur Peter Tomaily, but losing to the incumbent president, Igor Smirnov, who was seeking re-election.

The Communist Party had nominated Nadezhda Bondarenko, a former police officer and currently the Editor-in-Chief of the party newspaper "Pravda Pridnestrovya" ["The Truth of Transnistria"], as its presidential candidate, and pensioner Anatoly Bazhenov as candidate for vice-presidency.

The Bondarenko ticket got 8.1% of the vote, finishing second with a wide gap between the Communist candidate and incumbent Igor Smirnov, who got more than ten times as much. This result was expected by Western analysts as well as by the foreign press, with BBC and other news organizations predicting a Smirnov win in advance of Sunday's presidential elections.

Personal popularity and independence stance assured Smirnov-win

Among voters in Pridnestrovie, Igor Smirnov maintains a surprisingly high level of personal popularity. He is seen as a staunch defender of independence and as a barrier to integration with Moldova in a territory which is predominantly Slav and which for more than 16 years has firmly rejected any talk of integration with neighboring Moldova.

" - Smirnov campaigned on a ticket of independence. Although Bondarenko in principle also supports independence, voters saw her as weaker on the issue," said local activist Petru Gladchi.

" - This is probably because Moldova is under the rule of the Communist Party, and the two Communist parties have ties. Even though they are not the same, the Communist Party of Pridnestrovie and the Communist Party of Moldova do have connections between them and they talk. This was enough to make voters think twice before casting their ballot for Bondarenko."

Voting took place Sunday in Pridnestrovie, also known as Transdniestria or Transnistria. A total of 263 polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time. The voting came to an end at 8 p.m. Of the republic's 555,000-strong population, just under 400,000 were registered to vote. Final turnout was registered as 66.1% of the electorate.

International observers who arrived to monitor the election process concluded that the election was transparent and democratic, and that "the Presidential elections in PMR took place in a calm atmosphere. We noted no election violations which can be used to discredit the outcome of the voting process."

See also:
» No surprise: Smirnov wins re-election by wide margin in Transdniester [1]