The Central Election Commission (CEC) on March 12 rejected the application to register the second initiative group for organizing the national legislative referendum on the abrogation of the law by which the mixed-member electoral system was introduced. The CEC meeting, which involved members of the initiative group, didn’t pass without arguments. After the Commission adopted its decision, the group members chanted “Shame” and “Resignation!”, IPN reports.

CEC president Alina Russu in the meeting said that deviations were identified in 126 cases when checking the correspondence of the identity data written on the list of the initiative group members with those from the statements and identification papers presented as copies. In 71 of the cases, the provided data were incomplete or mistaken – the personal identification code was indicated incorrectly in the list of initiative group members, the statement wasn’t written legibly and the copy of the identity card was unreadable. In 47 of the cases, the signatures from the lists, the identity cards and statements didn’t coincide.

Alina Russu made reference to legal provisions according to which electoral changes cannot be made at least one year before the parliamentary elections.

The decision to reject the registration of the initiative group was adopted by the votes of six CEC members. Two members voted against, while one member wasn’t in the hall when the issue was put to the vote. CEC member Sergiu Gurduza had a separate opinion on the decision, which he will present later. He said the arguments indicated in the decision by the CEC president are unfounded and the initiative group should have been registered. CEC member Vladimir Sarban said the Commission took an incorrect decision when it refused to register the group.

The first application to register the second initiative group for organizing the national legislative referendum was rejected by the CEC two months ago.