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Briefness first and foremost – January 10, 2019 IPN digest


https://www.ipn.md/en/briefness-first-and-foremost-january-10-2019-ipn-digest-7978_1046344.html

This year’s elections can be considered a record for the use of administrative resources, stated the executive director of the Institute for Development and Social Initiative “Viitorul” Igor Munteanu, who intends to compete in constituency No. 15 Călărași on behalf of the bloc ACUM DA PAS. Among the groups used as administrative sources are the foresters, doctors, teachers and postmen, who represent all the services that are regulated by the state.

“Promo-LEX” Association ascertained increased activism among already registered electoral competitors or potential competitors before the parliamentary elections held based on the mixed electoral system. In the monitoring period, December 10 – January 8, there were staged about 280 events, approximately 100 of which can be described as offering of presents in the electoral period, shows the second report of the parliamentary election observation mission that was presented by “Promo-LEX”.

The 32 candidates for MP in the national constituency of the political party “People’s Movement Antimafie” were registered as runners in the parliamentary elections of February 24, 2019. This is the sixth electoral competitor registered in the national constituency.

But the party will not take part in the upcoming parliamentary elections in single-member constituencies because it does not recognize the mixed electoral system. According to the party’s leader Sergiu Mocanu, Antimafie would have boycotted these elections if all the parties had undertaken to make a common front.

The electoral bloc ACUM also does not does not support the consultative referendum that will take place simultaneously with the parliamentary elections and calls on the electors not to vote in the plebiscite.

The leader of the Party “Dignity and Truth Platform” Andrei Năstase in a news conference said the law was violated when the consultative referendum was set. Alexandru Slusari, candidate on behalf of ACUM, said “this referendum is not scientifically and technically explained and there is no explanation why the number of MPs should be reduced to 61. All these subjects can be solved later, in a legal way, in the future Parliament, after ACUM takes over”.

In the mixed elections, the political players remain the main players as regards the fielding and registration of candidates. In single-member constituencies, 73% of the initiative groups were constituted by parties or blocs, while 27% by citizens who aim to run independently. At the same time, only five parties were registered for the national constituency by January 9 and this is a low number compared with the previous elections, says the second report of the parliamentary election observation mission that was presented by “Promo-LEX” Association.

In another development, the observation mission said given that the Central Election Commission banned the registrars’ access to the State Register of Voters, the observers of “Promo-LEX” didn’t manage to fully monitor the updating of electoral rolls. “Promo-LEX” is surprised at such a ban imposed for the period between December 28, 2018 and January 10, 2019, when the State Register of Voters should be updated systematically, including with the involvement of registrars, given that it is the electoral period.

The Party of Socialists expects the election campaign will be tough, but says that it is ready for it. “As a party, we want these elections to be correct, to be impartially covered by the media and the political parties to subscribe to that code of conduct in the campaign that we signed,” the leader of the PSRM Zinaida Grecheanyi told a news conference on January 10. As to the PSRM’s candidates in single-member constituencies, the politician said 46 of them presented lists with signatures. About 35,000 signatures were collected in all.

The President of Moldova Igor Dodon sent an official letter to the Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev in connection with the Russian Government’s Decision under which the import duties on a number of categories of Moldovan goods were to be abolished on January 1, 2019. In a message on a social networking site, President Dodon wrote the non-implementation of this decision caused difficulties to Moldovan exporters.

Igor Dodon reminded that another Decision by the Russian Government, by which the import of Ukrainian goods into Russia and of goods from other countries that are brought to Russia by transiting Ukraine is banned, took effect also on January 1, 2019.

Details on IPN!