CEC appoints Buteni District Electoral Council

The Central Election Commission on Friday, January 18, approved the appointment of the District Electoral Council for the village of Buteni in Hancesti district. The appointment was approved by unanimity of votes, after the Christian Democratic People’s Party (PPCD) proposed another candidate for the Council. Renata Lapti, CEC vice president, stated that although from legal point of view there were no reasons to reject the previous candidate, the PPCD accepted the proposal made by the CEC and replaced the candidate. By doing so, the party has displayed much reasonableness in order not to jeopardise the normal development of elections on March 2, Lapti said. CEC Secretary Iurie Ciocan, who voted against the appointment of the Council at the previous meeting because of the candidate fielded by the PPCD, stated that the provisions of the Electoral Code as well as the codes of good practice in electoral matters working in the EU require the members of electoral bodies to have an irreproachable reputation and good professional standing. A person who serves as a member of an electoral body and who takes part in meetings to support a candidate in elections is not fit to work in a body which is equidistant per se, said Ciocan, hinting at the candidate proposed by the PPCD earlier. CEC failed to approve the appointment of the Buteni District Electoral Council because several CEC members were against Zinovia Scurcan returning to the Council, after she had resigned from the post a month earlier. The problems in Buteni village appeared after the court invalidated the results of the elections for mayor, according to which the candidate Anatol Postolache scored a comfortable win. Postolache was accused of violating the Electoral Code. CEC announced rerun elections for July 1, but the election outcome was again invalidated. CEC arranged rerun elections in Buteni for October 14 and then for December 16, but in both cases disgruntled villagers blocked the access to the polling station in protest against the CEC decision to take Postolache off the ballot. On December 16 the Electoral Council resigned, and later that month CEC decided to schedule new mayor’s elections for March 2, 2008.