Moldovan Electoral Watchdog Says Withdraws Accreditation Of Russian Member Of OSCE Mission

Moldovan Central Electoral Commission (CEC) satisfied the request of the monitoring mission of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE ODIHR) to withdraw accreditation of its member from Russia, CEC Chairwoman Alina Russu said on Saturday

CHISINAU (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd February, 2019) Moldovan Central Electoral Commission (CEC) satisfied the request of the monitoring mission of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE ODIHR) to withdraw accreditation of its member from Russia, CEC Chairwoman Alina Russu said on Saturday.

Earlier, OSCE ODIHR spokesman Thomas Rymer told Sputnik that the Russian observer for the parliamentary elections in Moldova, Alexander Kobrinskiy, was suspended from participation in the mission "after an obvious violation of the ODIHR election observer's code of conduct."

"Yesterday, the Central Election Commission considered a statement from an international observation mission. They requested that this observer be removed from the list of international observers. The commission made this decision. I will not comment on the motives because we respect the work of absolutely all international national missions, and this is the missions' right [to withdraw observers]," Russu told journalists.

According to Sputnik's source familiar with Kobrinskiy, on Thursday, head of the ODIHR election observation mission Matyas Eorsi and head of the ODIHR elections department Alexander Shlyk from Warsaw took the OSCE certificate with a photo from the Russian observer without explaining any reasons. According to the source, Kobrinskiy believes that this was due to his posts on Facebook, where he wrote about the governments of the former Soviet countries being committed to the West and the demographic situation in Moldova. Kobrinsky demanded an official paper indicating the specific reasons for the suspension, but he has not received it yet, the source said.

Parliamentary elections in Moldova are scheduled for Sunday. They will be held for the first time in a mixed electoral system. The new rules stipulate that 50 lawmakers will be elected via party lists, and 51 via Constituencies.