CEC of South Ossetia declines presidential candidates' proposals on election control

The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of South Ossetia declined measures of control and transparency during the second round of election. The measures were proposed by presidential candidates.

The second round of presidential election in South Ossetia will be held on April 8. According to the outcomes of voting held on March 25, Leonid Tibilov, who gained 42.28 percent of votes, and David Sanakoev, with 24.58 percent of votes, will run for presidency in the second round of the election.

David Sanakoev appealed to the CEC with the requirement that all electoral precincts should be equipped with video cameras and that counting of ballots should be conducted in gloves. Besides, he proposed to permit representatives of the candidates with the rights of signatures to check passports or other identification documents of voters for registration data compliance and presence of marks for participation in the voting.

The headquarters of the presidential candidate Leonid Tibilov also submitted their proposals to the CEC. "Our headquarters have sent an application to the CEC asking to establish operational mobile teams, which would include a journalist, two representatives of the candidate, a representative of the CEC, and a police officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). This operational team could go for discussions and record violations throughout the city and district centres and go to electoral precincts to the village of Verkhny Ruk in case of violation reports from there," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by Gana Yanovskaya, the representative of the headquarters of Leonid Tibilov.

According to her, the headquarters have also appealed to the CEC proposing that at the election, observers of both candidates should sit on both sides of a member of the election commission, who stamp passports of voters.

"However, we were rejected in all our statements. The CEC refused to explain us, whether the right of voters to vote not with their passports, but with documents of No. 9, which replaces identification document for many voters, is lawful," Gana Yanovskaya has added.

According to Bella Plieva, all electoral precincts will be technically equipped to the highest level, like at the presidential elections held on March 25.

Bella Plieva has also added that to date no violations have been registered during conducting of the election campaign and that the headquarters of the candidates have filed no complaints against each other. According to the Chairperson of the South-Ossetian CEC, international observers and journalists already started to come to South Ossetia.