CEC asks Parliament to dismiss a member

The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) will solicit the Parliament to discharge Nicolae Garbu from the office of CEC member. He is accused of making political statements. In turn, Garbu says these accusations are unfounded. On Tuesday, January 16, within the frameworks of the CEC session, Nicoale Garbu presented the statement he had publicised on the same day at a press conference, in which he accused Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Andrei Stratan of interfering in the activity of CEC and asserted that the government continues to influence and control the activity of the Commission. Within the frameworks of the session the CEC Secretary presented a request for the parliament which mentioned that Garbu characterised the activity, the status and the impartiality of the Commission in the most inappropriate way. “Thus, CEC expresses a total disagreement with what was said by Garbu, reconfirms the impartiality of its members, and qualifies the behaviour of Garbu as slanderous, unfounded, and contravening the status of a CEC member”, the statement says. CEC members request the Parliament to analyse the compatibility of Garbu’s behaviour with the office of CEC member and dismiss him. Also, during the session, several Members of the Commission denied the accusations brought by Garbu, mentioning that they have never been pressed or imposed to adopt any decision. On the other hand CEC members Vasile Gafton and Mihai Busuleac stated that Garbu had the right to make statements. Busuleac added that there is no legal ground to solicit the dismissal of Garbu. In turn, Garbu affirmed that the Commission’s request is legally unfounded, mentioning that he didn’t make any political statements during the press conference. The decision to send the request to the Parliament has been voted by 5 of the 8 members of CEC. Garbu told a press conference on January 16 that Stratan submitted an interpellation to CEC during the elections of Gagauzia’s Governor by means of which he requested the central electoral body not to allow Russian observers to participate in monitoring the elections, both individual persons and human rights organisations. The CEC member referred himself to the “Komsomoliskaia Pravada” newspaper which wrote that “PPCD and PCRM have obviously placed themselves closer to the centre, a fact that strangely made these parties stronger, so strong that the Communist Party can allow itself to grant the opposition the control over CEC, the Court of Accounts and the Intelligence Services”. Garbu says that by means of this newspaper, the article’s author Constantin Staras proves that the communist government continues to control the activity of CEC and regard its members as representatives of the political partnership parties, and at the other side, opposition parties’ representatives.