The Communist Party (PCRM) was again warned by the Central Election Commission (CEC). This time, the Democratic Party (PDM) informed the Comission that the PCRM’s financial report for the last two weeks does not include the costs of advertising in the periodical publication “Comunistul” – the party’s newspaper. The decision was passed on March 17 by 5 votes of the 8 CEC members attending, Info-Prim Neo reports. PDM representative to the CEC Andrei Volentir said that none of the materials published in this paper are accompanied by the words “Paid from the Election Fund” and are not placed in the column “Elections 2009” as stipulated in the regulations concerning the covering of the election campaign. Volentir asked the CEC to appeal to the Supreme Court of Justice and demand that the PCRM is excluded from the election race, while the General Prosecutor’s Office should check the party’s accounting documents. Stefan Creanga, the representative of the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM) to the CEC, said that the PCRM spent about half a million lei for issuing the paper during the election campaign and did not include this money in the financial report. CEC vice president Renata Lapti said that it is too early to appeal to the Supreme Court of Justice and the General Prosecutor’s Office, but stressed that the PCRM must be warned as it did not include the expenses related to the publication of “Comunistul” in the first financial report either. Andrei Volentir told the reporters he was satisfied with the CEC decision that was the PDM’s reply to a similar contestation filed by the PCRM against the Democrats. “Then the PCRM obtained nothing, but we managed to prove that they violated the Election Code and this is a moral satisfaction,” Volentir said. CEC secretary Iurie Ciocan, who abstained from voting, said that the activity of party press is not governed by the regulations on the covering of the election campaign. One of the two CEC members that voted against warning the PCRM, Valentin Vizant, said that the Communist Party should be notified not warned as they did with other election contenders earlier because the violation committed by the PCRM is not more serious. But his proposal was rejected. PCRM representative to the CEC Sergiu Sarbu said that a party newspaper is not like an ordinary paper where the electoral ads should be posted in special columns. The materials published in “Comunistul” are electoral information not propaganda, he said, adding that they will appeal the decision to the Chisinau Court of Appeals. Earlier, the PCRM was warned that it used images with foreign official persons in its electoral adverts in breach of law following a contestation filed also by the PD. If a political party violates the electoral legislation for several times, the CEC members can lodge an application with the Supreme Court of Justice and demand that the contender is removed from the election race. But the Election Code does no say what kind of violations namely. The CEC also decides how many warnings it can give to a party, depending on the gravity of the committed violations.