The results of this autumn’s parliamentary elections risk being compromised if legislation aimed at ensuring free and fair elections is not adopted during the five days that remained until the end of the current parliamentary session.

In a news conference at IPN, executive director of the Association of Independent Press Petru Macovei said that though Parliament promised to amend the Broadcasting Code to make sure that the real owners of media outlets become known, the bill wasn’t passed. This is dangerous, especially in election campaigns, as some of the TV channels can manipulate voters in favor of particular politicians.

Petru Macovei said that Parliament hasn’t yet chosen the new composition of the Supervisory Board of the National Public Broadcaster “Teleradio Moldova”. The Board has been non-functional since last yearend. If Parliament goes on vacation without designating the new members of the Board, this won’t be done in the next session either as it starts simultaneously with the electoral period.

Executive Director of the Partnership for Development Center Alexei Buzu said the women’s and young people’s representation quota in Parliament hasn’t been yet set. The women in Moldova are more active in elections than men, but they represented only 19% of the MPs. This rate is under the European and world levels and is higher only than the rate in the Muslim countries. Though the young people represent 30% of the voters, they make up only 5% of the lawmakers.

The Coalition for Free and Fair Elections considers the delay in introducing a representation quota in Parliament is unjustified and demands that the government fulfills the promise to ensure equality of chances.

Pavel Postica, program director at “Promo-LEX” Association, said the MPs also didn’t adopt the package of laws on the financing of election campaigns and political parties. “At the beginning of the current session, the lawmakers said that this package is a priority, but it hasn’t been discussed for over a year,” he stated.

Pavel Postica added that Parliament must immediately set caps on donations for parties so as to prevent their oligarchization. Given the current geopolitical situation, the financing of parties from abroad must be banned. The MPs must show that they didn’t declare this bill a priority for the sake of the foreign partners only.

Nicolae Panfil, secretary of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, reiterated that Parliament must fulfill the undertaken commitments during the five days that remained until the end of the current session.

The news conference was held within the public campaign “Countdown to fulfillment of the government’s promises: seven days – seven priorities” that includes protests. The organizers aim to remind the authorities about the seven commitments that they must honor by the end of the spring-summer session of Parliament.