50% of Moldovans want a new Constitution

The Moldovans are divided about the adoption of a new Constitution, an issue that was the topic of political debates lately. According to the Public Opinion Barometer published on Tuesday, November 20, 50.5% of respondents think Moldova needs a new Constitution, while 37.5% oppose the idea. They others were undecided, Info-Prim Neo reports. Director of the Institute for Public Policies Arcadie Barbarosie said that 67% of respondents were in favor of a referendum for amending the Constitution. 20% think this should be done in the Parliament, while the rest don’t know and didn’t answer. 65% think that the official name of the language should be Moldovan, while 23% say it should be Romanian. About 8% think it should be Moldovan, followed by Romanian in brackets. 2% would remove altogether the articles about language from the Constitution, while 3% don’t know or refused to answer. BOP shows that 90.5% of respondents want the President to be elected through direct vote. Concerning the election of parliamentarians, 32.1% of respondents opted for party lists, as is the current practice, 30% for uninominal vote (an MP from each electoral precinct), and 23.2% want a 50/50 variant: half of the MPs to be elected on party lists and half through uninominal vote. Director of the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT Igor Botan, a member of the jury that approved the BOP-2012 program, said that most likely the new Constitution will not be adopted. He explained that although the people want a new Constitution, society was fragmented. Everyone imagines his own Constitution and there is no common ground for these groups. The only amendments that will pass are those that enjoy popular support. Dr. Ludmila Malcoci, member of the jury, said that most of the people who want a new Constitution are from rural areas and have a low level of education. “I guess that most of those who said they want a new Constitution, don’t know why they want it and didn’t read the current one. The change they demand is perhaps related to the wish for a better life”, she explained. The Public Opinion Barometer was commissioned by the Institute of Public Policies and was carried out by the Center of Sociological Investigations and Marketing CBS-AXA between October 30 and November 12 on a sample of 1237, with a sampling error margin of ±2.8%.