The PAS MPs adopted amendments to the Electoral Code after giving them a final reading. By the CEC’s decision, in some of the electoral districts or polling places, elections could be held during two days, on Saturday and Sunday, for objective reasons. The MPs gave up introducing electronic voting, IPN reports.
The BCS bloc asked that the examination of the bill should be put off, invoking the necessity of achieving a broad political consensus. At the beginning of the sitting, Socialist MP Vlad Batrîncea suggested removing the bill from the agenda, saying that the proposed variant of the Electoral Code generates the risk of discrimination against particular categories of voters.
When the bill was given a second reading, the BCS group insisted that the Code should provide that the ballots will be also printed in Russian. The head of the Parliament’s commission on appointments and immunities Olesea Stamati said a compromise formula was reached: “The ballots are compiled in Romanian. To facilitate the participation of ethnic minorities in elections, the ballots can also be compiled in another language, at the request of the electoral bodies of the given electoral district”.
The Socialists expressed their dissatisfaction with the new method of designating members of the Central Election Commission (CEC), more exactly with the fact that some of the members will be proposed by the Government and the Superior Council of Magistracy. MP Adrian Lebedinschi said a member should be nominated by the President, while the other six should be fielded by Parliament, by observing the propositional representation of the majority and the opposition.
Olesea Stamate said the variant accepted by the commission provides that one member is named by the President, one member – by the Superior Council of Magistracy, one member – by the Government at the suggestion of the Ministry of the Interior, one member – by representative SCOs, while four members – by Parliament.
CEC vice president Pavel Postica said a large part of the amendments concerning ATU Gagauzia weren’t accepted, including the amendment about the mixed electoral system for Gagauzia because the law provides that the People’s Assembly is the representative authority of this Autonomous Territorial Unit. As to the rest, the Gagauz voters take part in proportional elections in conditions of equality, as all the citizens of the Republic of Moldova do.
The new Electoral Code was adopted by 55 votes of MP.
