Political analyst Veaceslav Berbeca said there are a number of concerns and risks when it is about the parliamentary elections and the use of administrative resources is one of the risks as all the governments in the Republic of Moldova are tempted to use administrative resources to obtain more votes. He stated such an opinion in the public debate “Stake of free and fair elections. Who ensures them, who respects them?” that was the 97th instalment of the series of debates “Developing political culture through public debates” organized by IPN Agency and Radio Moldova.
Veaceslav Berbeca said concerns appeared when the electoral system was replaced as this amendment was made according to a particular logic. They speak about the interest to create single-member constituencies so as to support particular parties. “It is hard to say if this system advantages or not, but the situation could be explained after the elections, when the results of parties based on lists and in single-member constituencies could be compared,” he noted, adding not many people understood how the mixed system works and how the next elections will be organized and this is also a risk as society hasn’t been yet familiarized with this system.
“My concerns are related to the fact that other electoral schemes could be used under the new electoral system, such as clones, placement of different independent candidates whose ideas could be close to the ideas of the opposition candidates. It is not excluded that the vote buying practice will be widely used, as earlier. These concerns make us believe that a lot of problems will appear and questions also appear as to the legitimacy of the parliamentary elections of February 2019,” stated Veaceslav Berbeca.
According to the analyst, the concerns are directly related to the invalidation of the Chisinau mayoral elections, when an unordinary situation for the whole Europe was witnessed. There were particular cases in Belarus, for example, but these concerned the non-admission of candidates in elections, not the invalidation of elections.
He anticipates that particular parties or election runners could be intimidated by different cases and the donors could be also intimated and blackmailed. Some of the legal entities now avoid donating money to political parties. Also, the registration of candidates could be refused based on vague arguments or some of the runners could be even excluded from the race, as it happened in 2014.
The debate “Stake of free and fair elections. Who ensures them, who respects them?” forms part of the series of public debates staged by IPN News Agency and Radio Moldova as part of the project “Developing political culture through public debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.
