The amendments to the Electoral Code, voted by the Parliament on August 15, are welcome, only that they have been put into practice after the setting of election date. At an IPN press conference, Pavel Postica, program director of Promo-LEX, said that it was regrettable that certain changes could affect the electoral process because they were unclear about aspects related to applying legal provisions to general local elections and snap parliamentary elections in some constituencies.
According to Pavel Postica, even if the changes brought some improvements related to the financing of the election campaign, certain gender-related facilities for electoral competitors and facilities for voters abroad, not all can be applied to these elections, especially to parliamentary elections.
Pavel Postica noted that "by the uninspired modification of the notion of "electoral campaigning "a loophole appeared in the law leading to various interpretations by ill- intended electoral competitors". "If there is a banner with only a photo of a political figure and without any urge to vote, it will not be interpreted as electoral advertising or campaigning. We believe that these deficiencies could generate different issues on the day of elections and the day before it,” said Pavel Postica.
Promo-LEX welcomes the gender facilities, namely the establishment of a fair gender ratio of 40-60% for every ten places on the lists. Reducing the donation ceiling is also a positive thing, although it concerns only the general local elections, as for the parliamentary elections they remain quite high. "Now the donation ceiling is of 6 average salaries for individuals and 12 average salaries for legal entities. For the parliamentary elections the ceilings are of 100 and 200 average salaries”.
Regarding the activity of the electoral bodies, Promo-LEX notes that the CEC managed to adjust the normative framework to the amendments made to the Electoral Code. However, there is some vagueness. For instance, how many groups of initiative can be registered by a person who wants to run for two or three positions.
Promo-LEX program director also said that the bodies subordinated to CEC have already been set up. The share of women represents 60% of the total number of electoral officials, but the situation differs when it comes to the election of women in management positions of the electoral bodies. Promo-LEX also notes that the headquarters of the constituency electoral councils are 49% inaccessible to persons with disabilities.
Promo-LEX suggests that the Parliament should resume the revision of the legal framework regarding the procedure of settlement and examination of electoral disputes, with a view to the fact that the first appeals regarding violations of electoral legislation have already been registered.
"If potential competitors committed certain acts during the electoral period, but not during the campaign, then the respective notifications will be examined on a general basis and not in a quicker manner, as it should be during the elections campaign.”, explained Pavel Postica.
The data were included in the Second Monitoring Report of the general local elections and the snap parliamentary elections of 20 October. The report contains the results of the monitoring carried out between August 15 and September 3, 2019.
