Andrey Safonov's candidacy was at first rejected on the basis of insufficient and allegedly fraudulent signatures,[1] but on 30 November the Tiraspol law court accepted it.
Despite the court ruling, at the Electoral Commission meeting on 27 November Safonov's registration was not accepted with some members claiming that the court decision needed to be challenged at a higher instance. The Commission finally allowed the candidacy on 5 December.
Starting with 7 December, early voting was allowed for those persons for whom it was impossible to come to the polls on 10 December.[2]
Andrey Safonov, one of the opposition candidates, suggested that election results were rigged in favour of the incumbent leader. He claimed that there was a strange difference between the exit polls results and the official results.[3] “It is not clear to me why, according to exit polls conducted by the Pridnestrovian Independent Center for Analytical Research “New Century”, President Smirnov received 63.34%, and according to official data this figure is much higher. At the same time, it is not clear to me why dataCEC1.6% voted against all. Firstly, more than 16% refused to answer questions on voting day - I think they clearly did not vote for Smirnov. Secondly, the level of protest voting in the PMR is generally traditionally higher,” said opposition candidate Andrei Safonov.[4] According to an article by the ethnic Russian researcher from Moldova Alla Skvortsova, "polls and elections in the PMR may to some extent have been rigged".[5]
^Alla Skvortsova, "The Cultural and Social Makeup of Moldova: A Bipolar or Dispersed Society?", in Pal Kolsto (ed.), National Integration and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Societies (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), p. 176.
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Elections and referendums in Transnistria