Chisinau  - Parliamentary elections in the former Soviet Republic of Moldova were mostly democratic, said international election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Thursday in the Moldovan capital Chisinau.

The OSCE however criticized Wednesday's elections, the second this year, as being marked by intimidation of voters and obstacles set before the opposition.

In addition, according to the OSCE, the state-controlled media was often unbalanced in its reporting.

"It is encouraging that this election in total was held professionally and efficiently," said Boris Frlec, the leader of the OSCE observer mission.

He however added that Moldova had to work more on democratic reforms in order to win the trust of voters.

International monitoring groups including the OSCE said the vote in April had been generally democratic, with few violations of election law.

But opposition parties in the wake of that election claimed the vote was inherently unfair, as the election campaign was conducted with strong Communist party control of major media and regional governments.

The July election was necessary after the Parliament chosen in the April 5 elections could not decide on a successor to President Vladimir Voronin.(dpa)