The Coalition for Unity and Welfare denounces the Central Election Commission’s decision not to admit Igor Munteanu to the electoral competition for the October 20 presidential election and announces that it will go to all the courts, including the ECHR, to defend the rights of citizens whose signatures were invalidated, IPN reports.
“I consider yesterday’s decision by the CEC represents public execution of a candidate that does not suit the power. The CEC’s decision is disappointing, but not surprising. It only confirms the rumors that circulated the day before, about the fact that the current power, the PAS government, will seek to take revenge on the Coalition for Unity and Welfare for the positions we have manifested for months, when we kept under continuous monitoring the actions and failures of the current government. These were confirmed yesterday by the CEC’s decision and we have serious reasons to believe that this was a political order,” CUB leader Igor Munteanu told a news conference.
He also accused the authorities of flagrant violation of the Constitution. “The Constitution guarantees the right to elect and to stand as a candidate at elections, but the CEC’s decision restricted this right. We believe that this profound misunderstanding is due to an outdated database, a database about which we filed multiple ccomplaints, as to deceased persons still being present in the database or the the absence of the person’s modified domicile in the database. Thus, 17,000 signatures were thrown away because of the CEC’s obtuse style of doing its duty,” stated Igor Munteanu.
The Coalition for Unity and Welfare will challenge the CEC’s decision in court. “We will not hesitate to go to all the courts to defend our right and we will also reach the ECHR because the current Electoral Code creates a mechanism of abuse, of systemic corruption through elections. We will appeal to all the European institutions because we do not want anyone to believe that their mistakes will be forgiven when they ignore the recommendations of the Venice Commission and the observation missions,” said Igor Munteanu.
On Tuesday, the Central Election Commission refused to register Igor Munteanu in the presidential race after finding that the number of signatures collected from voters was insufficient. In the process of examining the subscription lists, a number of irregularities were identified, including the registration of erroneous or unclear data, alleged signatures from people who, in fact, are dead. Out of 611 subscription lists with 17,357 signatures of supporters, 2,530 signatures were declared invalid. As a result, the number of valid signatures was below the lowest limit of 15,000 for being registered as an election candidate.
