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PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN MOLDOVA AS SEEN BY PACE AND RUSSIA REPRESENTATIVE

MOSCOW, March 7 (RIA Novosti) - Parliamentary elections in Moldova were prepared non-professionally and held with flagrant violations, believes Akhmed Bilalov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma's committee on CIS affairs and ties with compatriots and a PACE observer.

"The level at which the elections were prepared was non-professional, with massive crude breaches," he told RIA Novosti over the telephone.

Among the irregularities Bilalov mentioned in particular the fact that citizens of Moldova residing in Transdniestria could not vote locally and had to travel to Moldova for casting their ballots.

"This may have a substantive effect on the election results, since to go to vote for a distance of 60 kilometers is very problematical, and not everyone had the desire to do so," said the deputy of the lower house of the Russian parliament.

He also considers it was an infringement on civil rights that there were no voting papers in Russian at Moldova's polling stations.

"In 90% per cent of the cases, there are no papers in Russian, only in Romanian. We think this infringes on civil rights," he told RIA Novosti.

Bilalov said that the same kind of irregularities occur at different stations. In particular, the voter's passport is stamped.

"People do not understand why they are stamped. An official version is to evade repeat voting," the Russian parliamentarian noted.

Bilalov reported that members of election commissions and law enforcement bodies took a guarded view of Russian monitors. "The attitude becomes cautious and guarded as soon as they learn that we are from Russia and have details of our documents taken down," he said.