Iurie Leanca, who is the candidate for President of the European People’s Party of Moldova (PPEM), submitted an application to the Central Election Commission, asking to make an order by which to enable the Moldovans who are abroad to vote in the October 30 presidential elections with identification papers whose period of validity expired, IPN reports.

In a press release, the PPEM says the application was filed after a number of Moldovans who are abroad signed an open letter saying that most of them didn’t manage to renew their passports for being able to vote. “There are 900,000 to 1 million Moldovans aboard now. Almost half of these have the status of permanent migrants. The passports of a large part of them are expired for different objective ad subjective reasons,” it is said in the press release.

Iurie Leanca noted that the Republic of Moldova set the maintaining of ties with the citizens who are abroad and the protection of their rights as an objective. “This objective is clearly stipulated in the national strategy “Diaspora 2025”, whose main provisions were worked out by the Government I had the honor to head. That’s why each election is an instrument for the people to directly take part in the internal political processes in the Republic of Moldova. For the diaspora, it is a major opportunity, which is unique for many, to be reconnected to what means power,” he said.

According to the information presented by the state-run Information Resources Center “Registru”, almost 263,000 Moldovans didn’t have valid identity papers or had expired papers on September 20 this year.