The Liberal Party requested the Constitutional Court to check the constitutionality of the law by which the electoral system was modified. In a challenge to the Court, the Liberals say the given law runs counter to a series of articles of the Constitution, in particular Article 38 on the Right to Vote and be Elected and Article 61 on the Election of Parliament, IPN reports.
According to the Liberal leader Mihai Ghimpu, the electoral system change is unconstitutional and seriously affects the rule of law, democracy and political pluralism, which are supreme values guaranteed by the Constitution. “Given that sovereignty belongs to the people of the Republic of Moldova and this is exercised by their representative bodies of which Parliament is the supreme one, it is banned restricting representativeness by limiting the universal and equal vote based on which the legislative authority is formed,” he stated.
Mihai Ghimpu also said that equality resides not only in the number of votes of the citizens, but also in the weight of each vote in choosing representatives of the people. Thus, each citizen has the right to one vote, but this vote should have the same weight as that of all the votes cast to elect a state authority. The equal vote can be ensured only if each citizen has the right to one vote and the constituencies are equal by the number of residents.
Parliament on July 20 adopted a bill to amend the Election Code by 74 votes in favor. By this, the party-list proportional representation system was replaced by the mixed-member electoral system by which half of the MPs will be chosen based on party lists, while the other half by single-member constituencies. So, 50 MPs will be elected by proportional representation, while 51 by uninominal vote in constituencies. The constituencies will be formed by a special commotion constituted by the Government. This will consist of representatives of civil society, parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties, national minorities, the academic community, etc.
