Igor Smirnov, who has run Moldova’ s breakaway Dniester Region since 1990, won the fourth presidential term in the Sunday election, the head of the region’s Central Electoral Commission told reporters here on Monday, according to Itar-Tass.
According to Petr Denisenko, Smirnov won 82.4 percent of the vote. He was way ahead of editors of opposition newspapers Nadezhda Bondarenko and Andrei Safonov, as well as businessman Petr Tomaila, who got respectively 8.1, 3.2 and 2.1 percent of the vote. Another 1.6 percent of voters voted against all.
The voter turnout was 66.1 percent of 394,000 eligible voters, according to the Central Electoral Commission.
Presidential term is five years in the breakaway region. The local legislation does not restrict the number of presidential terms for one and the same person. Prior to the election, Smirnov told reporters that he will resign only after the region wins international recognition.
Meanwhile, Moldova has urged the international community to denounce the election in the Dniester Region. Chisinau says it was held “in an absolutely undemocratic atmosphere”. The OSCE did not send its observers, calling into question the legitimacy of the election.
Observers arriving from Russia, Ukraine, France, Moldova, Italy, Poland and other countries have qualified it as policy of “double standards”. They have produced a report saying the election in the Dniester Region met international standards.
