In cooperation with the State Electoral Office of Estonia, International IDEA convened a group of European electoral management bodies on 15 December 2021, to discuss the cybersecurity aspects of elections, five years after the initial wave of cybersecurity concerns emerged. The EMBs participated from Austria, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Moldova, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine.
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Against a background of deteriorating informational environments, falling trust in state institutions and growing electoral result disputation, electoral processes and those who administer them are increasingly being placed under the microscope.
In Moldova’s recent parliamentary elections, social media formed a prominent environment for election campaigning. To promote transparency and ultimately the integrity of the electoral process, International IDEA supported a Moldovan democracy watchdog MediaPoint and its partner, a Slovenian non-profit media monitoring agency MEMO98 in monitoring social media during the early parliamentary elections in July 2021.
Protecting the integrity of electoral campaign financing
Funding of political parties and candidates is a necessary component of political participation and representation. Yet, if such political finance systems are not effectively regulated, money could be used to undermine the integrity of political processes and institutions.
With parliamentary elections in Moldova less than three months away, debate on the funding of election campaigns is heating up. On 6 December 2018, International IDEA organized Moldova’s first roundtable dialogue on Third-Party Contributions in Political and Campaign Funding, together with the Center for Continuous Electoral Trainings (CICDE).
Launch of the Assessment of State of Local Democracy in Moldova
At a time of multiple challenges facing representative democracies across the globe, closing gaps between governments and citizens has become top priority. Central to this objective is the following question: what methods and tools are best suited to engage citizens in a critical reflection on the quality of their democracies? How can such democracy health-checks be made more meaningful and impactful?
All political parties need funding to play their part in the political process, yet the role of money in politics is arguably the biggest threat to democracy today.
The State of Local Democracy (SoLD) assessment framework is designed to facilitate a citizen-led and -owned approach to assessing the quality of democracy at the local level.
It is a practical resource for citizens to conduct self-assessments of democratic life in their locality, identify democratic strengths and weaknesses, and translate these into reform agendas for further broadening and deepening of their local democracies.
In recent years illicit transnational networks have increased their capacity to threaten the legitimacy of democratic institutions and political processes.