Tiraspol, 15 March. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. As Novosti Pridnestrovya has already reported, on 12 March Abkhazia held the parliamentary election. 12 MPs were elected in the first round. The second round is due to take place in the 22 constituencies within two weeks, and one constituency will have a rerun of the election.
In contrast to Pridnestrovie, to win a seat in Abkhazia's parliament, a candidate must gain 50% plus one vote of the voters taking part in the election. In the constituency where the rerun is due to be held, there were to candidates none of whom managed to win more than half of the votes.
As Yelena Gorodetskaya, who participated as an observer in the Abkhazian elections, noted during today's meeting of the Central Election Commission, Abkhazia wants to adopt the Pridnestrovian system of single-round parliamentary elections.
According to Gorodetskaya, the election laws of Pridnestrovie and Abkhazia vary greatly. For example, there is no «Against All» option in Abkhazian ballots. Peculiar is the method of filling in a ballot — a voter crosses out the candidates he does not like. Abkhazia also employs a special procedure of «marking voters» by applying a lasting colour to a voter's finger.
«We witnessed two incidents where voters refused to be marked. Ballots were not given to them and they were gone. There is a trend now to abolish this procedure," said Gorodetskaya.
Along with information about the candidates, there are also voters' lists available at each polling station
«The availability of such lists does not rule out additional lists. It is more convenient for the commission, of course — a voter comes, sees his number on the list and then simply tells the commission his number. This speeds up the process. Another peculiar practice is that ballots are verified on the reverse side by candidates' election agents," noted Gorodetskaya.
She also announced that today the CEC of the PMR had received an invitation from South Ossetia to take part in the presidential election there and recalled that South Ossetia would also hold a referendum soon.
