Presidential elections were held in the breakaway republic of Transnistria on 1 December, 1991. These were the first such elections in the newly founded Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, and were won by Igor Smirnov, one of the country's founders. Smirnov faced two opponents: Grigore Mărăcuţă and Grigoriy Blagodarniy.[1] Mărăcuţă would become an ally of Smirnov and was speaker of the Supreme Council until 2005. According to an article by the ethnic Russian researcher from Moldova Alla Skvortsova from 2002, "polls and elections in the PMR may to some extent have been rigged".[2]
^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.