Parliament adopts amendments to Election Code

The legislative body Friday passed a bill with amendments to the Election Code. Under the amendments, the candidates running in the local elections will not have free airtime on the public radio station and television channel during the election campaign. Earlier, the public broadcaster was obliged to provide by 1 minute of free airtime to all the election contenders, Info-Prim Neo reports. More than 100,000 candidates will run in the June 5 local elections. Thus, the public broadcaster will be unable to offer gratis airtime to all the candidates. Free airtime will be provided only during legislative elections and referendums. The amendments also exclude the provision that the terms in office of the local councilors and mayors start when their seats are validated. Their terms in office will thus expire four years after the elections, not four years of the day they take over. Another amendment postpones the implementation of the Electronic Register of Voters until 2015. Initially, it was planned that the register will begin to be used in 2011. The authors of the bill say the amendments are designed to optimize and correct some of the electoral technical procedures, especially those used in the local elections. The Communist parliamentary group did not support the amendments to the Election Code. MP Sergiu Sarbu said they are hasty and represent in fact changes to the rules of the game. He reminded that the international organizations, including the Venice Commission, do not recommend amending the electoral legislation before the election campaign. Asked by the journalists to pronounce on the passed legislative amendments, the president of the Central Election Commission Iurie Ciocan said the central electoral authority waited for them for a long time.