The Central Election Commission (CEC) said the initiative group for collecting signatures for holding a referendum to amend and supplement the Constitution has been issued with a sufficient number of subscription lists. The group now possesses 40,000 subscriptions lists by which they can collect over 1.7 million signatures. This means that by 440,000 signatures can be collected for each of the four questions proposed for the referendum, which is more than the necessary minimum, IPN reports.

In a communique, the CEC says that in accordance with the legal provisions, the procedure for initiating a constitutional referendum can be launched if at least 360,000 signatures are collected for each of the proposed questions. Moreover, the Commission will verify the authenticity of about 360,000 of the collected signatures. The other collected signatures will not be verified and cannot produce legal effects.

Currently, the CEC is examining an application from the given initiative group, by which this asks to be issued with more subscription lists. The Commission ordered printing another 10,000 lists (by 2,500 for each question proposed for the referendum). These will enable to collect another 400,000 signatures. The initiative group will thus have 50,000 subscription lists by which a total of over 2.1 million signatures or 540,000 signatures for each of the four questions can be collected. This is two times more than the required number.

Last week, members of the initiative group created by the Civic Platform “Dignity and Truth” said the process of collecting signatures for initiating a referendum on the election of the head of state by the people is hampered artificially by some of the state institutions. According to them, the subscription lists issued by the CEC are insufficient as they can cover only 18 of the 35 districts of the country with these lists.