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Moldovan Parties Trade Accusations As Campaign Ends


Representatives of the Our Moldova alliance rally in downtown Chisinau.
Representatives of the Our Moldova alliance rally in downtown Chisinau.
CHISINAU -- Moldova's ruling Communist Party and the opposition parties have exchanged accusations of manipulation and unfair competition on the last day of official campaigning, RFE/RL's Moldovan Service reports.

Moldova's election law requires that all campaigning for the July 29 parliamentary elections must cease at midnight the day before.

Mark Tkachuk, who heads the Communists' election staff, said in Chisinau that the opposition has spread lies about the Communist Party.

He says one campaign brochure incorrectly attributed to the Communists pledges that the next Moldovan president will be Iurie Rosca, a minor Christian Democrat ally of the ruling Communists who has a pro-Romanian, nationalist past.

The Communists' official campaign literature features, among other things, a plea to preserve Moldova's multiethnic society and defend it from what it calls "Romanian revisionism."

Most of Moldova was part of Romania until World War II.

Also on July 28, Chisinau Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca of the Liberal Party warned that the communists are ready to use fraud to win the upcoming elections and complained of harassment and intimidation from the Communists throughout the election campaign, the Romanian newspaper "Evenimentul zilei" reported.

Serafim Urecheanu, leader of the opposition Our Moldova Alliance, said the campaign has been "the dirtiest" in Moldovan history, and he said the Communist Party is to blame for that.
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