Parliament increases electoral ceiling for parliamentary elections

The Parliament on December 27 raised the electoral ceiling for entering the legislative body from 4% to 6%, Info-Prim Neo reports. The initiative was put forward by two Communists MPs in October 2006. Iurie Eriomin, one of the authors, said that the ceiling of 6% enabled one of the most powerful parties (making it clear that he refers to the Communist Party – e.n ) to hold a majority in the legislative body. By mutual agreement, the party managed to attract and consolidate MPs from other parties with the aim of electing the head of state and the new composition of the Government. He said that if the ceiling of 4% is maintained, the number of political organizations that will enter the Parliament will increase suddenly. This fact will endanger and possibly block the election of the country’s president, of a viable Government coalition. A relevant example is the Chisinau administration that includes about ten political organisations that cannot produce results, the MP said. Deputy Speaker Iurie Rosca, leader of the Christian-Democratic People’s Party, backed the initiative, saying that the Christian-Democratic parliamentary group will vote in favour of the bill. On the other hand, the bill was criticised by the Opposition MPs, who stressed that the international organisations welcomed the Parliament’s decision of July 2005 to reduce the electoral ceiling from 6% to 4%. MP Vladimir Filat said that this initiative is one of the instruments that the Communist Party needs to take part in the electoral race of 2009. As a rule yet, such actions have the opposite effect, he said. During the discussions, the Communist MPs submitted two more proposals regarding the modification of the electoral ceiling. Vadim Misin suggested an electoral ceiling of 7%, while Eugenia Ostapciuc of 5%. The last proposal was supported by the chairman of the legal commission for appointments and immunities Vladimir Turcan. Turcan said that most of the European states have an electoral ceiling of 5%. Therefore, the bill could be modified in second reading. Another bill that was worked our by the Communist MPs proposes a number of amendments to the Electoral Code. Among these are: to exclude the notion of “electoral block” and the stipulations concerning the electoral blocks from the Code; to ban the persons sentenced by definitive court decisions, those with current criminal records and those that hold dual or multiple nationality from taking part in the electoral race; to prepare regulations similar to print media publicity for electoral publicity through mobile phones and Internet. It also suggests enumerating all the persons whose activity must be suspended from the moment they are registered as electoral candidates. Among these persons are the ministers, heads of central public institutions, MPs, chairmen and deputy chairman of rayons, mayors and deputy mayors, district heads and deputy district heads. The Opposition MPs had objections to this bill, but it was passed by a majority vote. Iurie Rosca announced that he will propose new amendments when the bill is discussed in second reading. He said that the lists of candidates should include only party members and no independent candidate should be allowed to run in elections. In second reading, the two bills will be discussed in package.