The Central Election Commission (CEC) prepared all the instruments needed for ensuring free and fair elections. However, the elections depend not only on the mechanisms of the CEC, but also on society in general and on the political class. The Moldovan voters must be educated not to accept electoral presents, while the politicians must be obliged to carry out fair election campaigns. The issue was discussed in the public debate “Framework for regulating and ensuring 2014 parliamentary elections: guarantees, innovations, challenges and dangers “staged by IPN News Agency in partnership with Radio Moldova.
CEC deputy chairman Stefan Uritu said even the election date this year was set in an unusual way, in May. Earlier, the election date remained an enigma until the launch of the election campaign. “The CEC in the current composition achieved a number of results that point to its independence and impartiality. The building where the Commission is based was made its property. The second year the Commission’s budget has been agreed by Parliament and the factors that earlier troubled some of the observers are eliminated. The state register of voters and the register of electoral functionaries are close to being finished. We have 4,200 computers that will be transmitted to the about 2,000 electoral offices,” he stated.
According to Stefan Uritu, the operators will be able to check if a person who comes to cast the ballot voted already elsewhere. “This is another guarantee of free and fair elections. The polling booths and ballot boxes will be standardized. The polling places will be outfitted with the same types of booths, of the same color. The reporting will be swift, through the same computers. The CEC passed the exam in the ISSO and security standards and in the quality of services. This is another indicator of our preparedness,” he stated.
Executive director of the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT, the project’s permanent expert Igor Botan said that everything that the CEC has achieved until now is the result of the efforts made during 20 years. “This is a reason for optimism. The solutions found by the CEC are good. The structure of the CEC meets the best international practices. But everything depends on us. The only problem is the lawmakers’ political will. I mean the obstacles placed in front of the very small parties and very large parties. We called the high election threshold and the redistribution of votes “Robbin Hood’s formula” as this method disadvantages the large parties and the electoral blocs,” stated Igor Botan.
The executive director of the Comrat Youth Center “Pligrim-Demo” Mihail Sirkeli noted that not everything depends on the CEC and the electoral bodies. Many things depend on the politicians and the voters. “From my viewpoint, the future campaign will experience problems related to the funding of campaigns and parties and media coverage. We will see what happens in the area of financing of election campaigns and their coverage. The Election Code wasn’t amended. There are two relevant bills in Parliament, but they weren’t adopted as there is no political will to change the rules of the game,” stated Mihail Sirkeli.
The experts said that society must be educated not to give their votes in exchange for electoral presents. They gave as example Norway where the people would feel offended if they were offered a gift in exchange for support in elections.
The debate “Framework for regulating and ensuring 2014 parliamentary elections: guarantees, innovations, challenges and dangers” is the 32nd of the series of debates “Development of political culture in public debates” that are staged by IPN Agency with the support of the German foundation “Hanns Seidel”.
