The amendment of the Moldovan electoral system as proposed by DPM and the PSRM is unadvisable, according to the experts of the Venice Commission. As stated in the full text of the opinion published today, the influencing of candidates in single mandate constituencies by local business interests and decreased representation for women are among the risks entailed by the new system, IPN reports.
The authors of the opinion say that the draft law was passed rather swiftly in the Parliament, without being openly and widely debated in society. According to the exports, the high number of votes with which the draft law passed indicates more of a formal consensus and not real wide consensus shared by the rest of the political parties and civil society. The Commission doesn’t recommend implementing such a vast reform without a similarly vast consensus.
The members of the Commission are uncertain about how single mandate constituencies will be formed, both in Moldova, as well as abroad and in the separatist Transnistrian region. They warn that a lack of clarity in this regard is a major potential vulnerability of the proposed system.
According to the experts in Venice, changing the electoral system without improving the laws regarding campaign financing and making the process more transparent will not achieve the stated goal of increasing the candidates’ integrity.
Other remarks concern the maintaining of a high electoral threshold, which favors large parties, and increasing the number of voters per ballot station from 3000 to 5000, which can increase the risk of challenges to the election management and lead to unnecessary problems.
The Venice Commission notes that it had issued a similar opinion in 2014, concerning the previous attempt to adopt the mixed electoral system and while most of the issues highlighted three years ago remain valid, the newly proposed system fails to address them. As such, the Commission finds the amendment of the electoral system according to the current draft unadvisable.
