Chisinau, December 18 (Infotag). The parallel vote count, undertaken at the December 17 run-off polls in Gagauzia by the League for Human Right Protection in Moldova (LADOM), has revealed that independent candidate Mikhail Formuzal had received 56.23% ballots.

LADOM Chairman Paul Strutzescu told a news conference in Infotag today that the second finalist, Comrat Mayor Nikolai Dudoglo, polled 43.77%. The voter turnout was 62.8%, including 5.96% on supplementary lists. LADOM’s 128 observers had not revealed any serious violations of the election procedure.

Perhaps, the only kind of violations was that in several Gagauzia villages the supporters of this or the other candidate offered a glass of wine to the voters heading to polling stations, which LADOM regarded as attempts to incline the villagers in favor of the candidate concerned.

The Independent Press Association (API) carried out a monitoring of 10 all-republican and Gagauzia mass media. API Executive Director Petru Macovei said at the news conference that, on the whole, the election campaign received a fair and correct covering in the press.

The Executive Director of the Association for Participatory Democracy (ADEPT), Igor Botan, stated the governor elections in Gagauzia “may be considered as a success of democracy. I think Mikhail Formuzal will manage to establish closer ties between the Gagauzia autonomy and the central Moldovan government”.

The ADEPT, LADOM and API carried out their researches in the framework of a project called “The Free and Correct Elections of Bashkan in Gagauzia”, being realized here in September 2006 through January 2007 with the financial assistance rendered by the Eurasia Foundation in Moldova.