ABSTRACT
The first democratic local elections in Moldova were held in 1995. Since then, seven rounds of local elections have been organized (local elections take place simultaneously for all municipalities every four years). The local electoral system is uniform for the entire country and has changed very little since the first local elections. In Moldova, mayors and local councilors are directly elected – for the election of mayors, the two-round system is used, while for the election of local councilors, the closed-list proportional representation system is applied. An interesting feature of local elections in Moldova is the geopolitical vote, whereas political ‘migration’ (changing parties after an election) of local elected officials is an issue considered to be a serious problem, by experts and the population alike, that erodes the voter’s expressed choice and that affects the independence of the local office holders.
