The Central Election Commission (CEC) rejected the initiative group’s proposal to hold a constitutional referendum by a majority of votes. CEC president Iurie Ciocan said the proposal was rejected because the signatures collected by the group members do not meet the validity conditions. The meeting involved representatives of the initiative group. Before the decision was adopted, the group’s head Andrei Nastase said the Commission interprets the Constitution ‘in a criminal way’. Police officers were mobilized around the CEC head office during the meeting, IPN reports.
According to Iurie Ciocan, the initiative group collected slightly over 400,000 signatures in favor of holding the constitutional referendum, though the figure of 360,000 was initially set. The collected signatures do not meet the constitutional provisions, in particular Article 141 of the Constriction. “For organizing the constitutional referendum, in the context of people’s initiative, at least 200,000 signatures must be collected from at least half of the territorial-administrative units of the second level and at least 20,000 signatures must be collected from each of the given units,” stated the CEC president.
He specified that the initiative group managed to collect over 20,000 signatures only in three territorial-administrative units – Chisinau and Balti municipalities and Orhei district. The initiative group collected signatures in 23 territorial-administrative units of the second level, even if 18 such units were enough.
The decision to reject the initiative group’s proposal to hold the constitutional referendum was taken after the CEC’s meeting was interrupted at the request of Iurie Ciocan because the representatives of the group made noise.
Andrei Nastase, the leader of the political party “Platform Dignity and Truth” (PPPDA), said the CEC plays political games and ignores the Constitution. He said that the decision was illegal, unconstitutional and anti-people, noting that by 20,000 signatures could not be collected from each territorial-administrative unit because many of these do not have such a population.
In another development, the leader of the PPPDA said that Article 141 of the Constitution, to which the CEC makes reference, provides that the referendum can be initiated by half of the territorial-administrative units of the second level, but then there were counties, not districts. “There were 11 counties + the municipality of Chisinau, which is 12. As six of them represented half, 120,000 signatures were needed, the law stipulating a minimum of 200,000 at country level,” he stated.
The representatives of the initiative group said they will challenge the decision in court.
