The head of the Election Observation Mission of Promo-LEX Association Pavel Postica said it is juridical nonsense to invalidate the first round of the mayoral election held in Chisinau after these were recognized by the electoral bodies that announced the runoffs. In its judgment, the Centru branch of the Court of Chisinau says “the legality of the new local mayoral elections held in Chisinau municipality on May 20, 2018 (first round) and on June 3, 2018 (runoffs) is not confirmed ”. Contacted by IPN, Pavel Postica said it is not clear what the court meant when it invalidated the first round of voting as well. Moreover, the argued judgement makes reference only to the violations committed on June 3.
“If major deviations that influence the election outcome or the distribution of seats are identified, the court can recognize the illegality of the elections and can invalidate them. The court should say it very clearly at what stage and in what election violations were committed as we had two rounds of voting, but the first round was recognized as legal by the electoral bodies by announcing runoffs,” stated Pavel Postica.
According to the expert, the law says that if the elections are invalidated or nullified, these are rerun in two weeks based on the same electoral registers, with the same electoral contenders and the same electoral bodies, except for the election runners that committed violations. In the local elections, no contender was penalized for the invoked illegal agitation. It is not clear who are those who should be excluded.
Andrei Nastase’s lawyer Dumitru Pavel has told IPN that the court’s judgement shows neither the first round of the mayoral elections, nor the runoffs were validated. Given that the first round of voting wasn’t validated either, new elections should be announced, by registering new candidates.
In the evening of June 21, the Chisinau Appeals Court upheld the Court of Chisinau’s decision to not validate the election of Andrei Nastase as mayor of Chisinau. The lawyers for Nastase announced they will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Justice on June 22.
Under the argued judgment of the ordinary court, both Andrei Nastase and Ion Ceban campaigned on the election day, which is inadmissible according to the Election Code. Both of the candidates, through the agency of live streams on social networking sites, called on the electorate to vote. Even if these didn’t say who namely the people should vote for, the court decided that these actions had a significant impact on the voters’ option.
