The Comrat Court of Appeal will examine on Monday, May 22, starting at 10:00 a.m., the case concerning the validation of the results of the second round of elections for the position of Bashkan of ATU Gagauzia on May 14. The magistrate who will examine the case is Andrei Mironov, judge at the Comrat Court of Appeal.

The candidate of the “Sor” party, Evghenia Guțul, won the elections for the position of Bashkan of ATU Gagauzia, after having obtained 27 374 votes in the second round, while her opponent, the independent candidate supported by the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM), Grigorii Uzun obtained 24 926 votes.

Also on Monday, 22 May, the “Shor” Party called its supporters to a rally in front of the Comrat Court of Appeal at 11:30 am “in support of the elected Bashkan of Gagauzia, Evghenia Gut, nominated by the Shor Party”.

The second round of the elections for the position of Bashkan was held on Sunday, 14 May in Gagauzia. According to the results published by the Central Electoral Commission of Gagauzia, the candidate of the “Shor” Party, Evghenia Guțul, won the elections for the position of Bashkan of UTA Gagauzia against Grigorii Uzun, an independent candidate supported by PSRM.

On May 16, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) in Chisinau reported that on May 13, 2023, it initiated eight contraventional proceedings on the facts of illegal financing of electoral contestants, who received donations from individuals exceeding the maximum ceiling set by law for cash donations, during the elections held in the Gagauzia Territorial Administrative Unit.

Also on the 16th, officers of the National Anti-Corruption Centre (NAC) raided the headquarters of the Central Electoral Commission of Gagauzia in a case of voter corruption. NAC representatives announced that “the basis for the action to collect the documents is the reasonable suspicion of the inclusion in the voter lists of deceased persons living abroad and voting on their behalf”.

Deceased persons and people abroad, among the voters who would have cast their vote for Evghenia Guțul. NAC comes with details of searches carried out in ATU Gagauzia

On the evening of 16 May, deputies of the Gagauz People’s Assembly held an extraordinary meeting and voted unanimously to “support the decision of the Central Electoral Commission of Gagauzia to recognize the results of the elections for the position of Bashkan”.

On 19 May, the NAC announced that the procedure of unsealing and examining the envelopes with the electoral lists of the ATU Gagauzia will take place in the presence of three members of the Central Electoral Commission of the Gagauz Autonomy, including the head of the Commission and the CEC lawyer from Chisinau. The NAC noted at the time that “the actions carried out by the NAC, under the leadership of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, do not affect, at present, in any way the judicial process of validating the elections”.