Electoral ceiling for parliamentary election could be 5%

The electoral ceiling for entering the Parliament could be 5%. The MPs will consider this possibility when discussing a relevant bill in second reading, legislators said during a radio and television programme broadcast on the national public stations on January 16, Info-Prim Neo reports. The Communist MP Vladimir Turcan and the chairman of the Christian-Democratic parliamentary group Vlad Cubreacov said they support such an initiative. They said that many of the EU member states have a ceiling of 5% and Moldova should also have such a limit. Cubreacov added that Moldova had an electoral ceiling of 5% earlier. According to him, the problem resides in the fact that the parties are small and not that the ceiling of 5% is high. On the other hand, the leader of the Democratic faction Dumitru Diacov said that the increase in ceiling and the banning of blocks are scandalous ideas that run counter to certain agreements reached with PCRM. The international organisations said the ceiling should be reduced so as the Parliament is more representative, while the idea of raising the ceiling stems from certain interests, the cited source highlighted. It is not normal for a party to get 21 MP seats for free, Dumintru Diacov said (in 2001, PCRM won about 50% of the vote, but held 71 of the 101 seats in the Parliament – e.n.). Diacov stressed that these stipulations are restrictive, tense the political relations in Moldova and will affect the postelectoral period too. The same speakers expressed different opinions about the proposal to ban the electoral blocks. Diacov said that the proposal should be rejected, while Turcan and Cubreacov said they are in favour of such a modification. Ion Plesca, MP of the Moldova Noastra Alliance Party, spoke about another stipulation of the bill by which the convicted persons and those with current criminal records cannot run in elections. He said that this is a violation of their rights. There are tens of thousands of persons that serve sentences in prisons and will be released when the time comes. About 5,000 people are put on probation each year. These citizens will not be able to stand in elections, Plesca underlined. The Communist MP Vladimir Turcan, who is also chairman of the legal commission for appointments and immunities, said that this matter is being considered and most of the members agreed that these restrictions should apply only to the persons that had been sentenced for committing offences on purpose. Political analyst Igor Botan, who spoke on the phone during the programme, said that the given amendments limit the freedoms of the parties. But the arguments of those that support these restrictions cannot be ignored because they are sound. It is true that the electoral blocks have been discredited, he said. Yet, the electoral ceiling will be reduced from 6% in 2005 to 5% in 2008 (if such a ceiling is fixed when the bill is discussed in second reading). The 4% ceiling would have been better for Moldova’s image, Botan said. He also stressed that the stipulation to ban the persons with current criminal records from running in elections is extremely limitative. The voters should be the ones to decide if such people must be elected or not. Speaking about the amendment that bans the people holding dual nationality from holding certain positions in the state, the analyst said that this limitation should apply only to the people that work for the special services and to the head of state. At the end of the last year, the Parliament adopted a bill that contains amendments to the Electoral Code. One of the amendments envisages raising the electoral ceiling from 4% to 6% as it was at the previous elections. The bill was passed in first reading by a majority vote, but had been long under discussion and was criticised by the Opposition.