Roman Mihaes, who applied to be registered as a candidate in the October 30 presidential elections, complains that the Central Election Commission groundlessly refused to register him in the race for the presidency. In a news conference at IPN, Roman Mihaes said a number of subscription lists with signatures presented by his initiative group to the CEC were rejected for the reason that the signatures of some of those who collected signatures in favor of him weren’t’ identical with that from the identity card.

Roman Mihaes said the signatures of five persons who collected signatures were declared inappropriate because they didn’t coincide with those from the identity card. Consequently, about 2,800 signatures from the subscription lists weren’t validated.

According to Roman Mihaes, the problem appeared because the given persons changed their signature in time. “This is a proof of the falsification of my file as they first checked if the almost 15,700 signatures are valid and then followed another path. They found fault with the signatures of these persons,” he stated.

Roman Mihaes challenged the CEC decision not to register him as an election runner to the Chisinau Appeals Court and is determined to go to the highest court.

Mihai Savchuk, one of the persons whose signature was declared inappropriate, said the CEC had his new signature and there should have been no confusion. He noted that the signature from the identity card is six years old and he changed it meanwhile.

Maxim Uglea, the operator who verified the subscription lists of Roman Mihaes, told the same news conference that he saw no serious violations of the norms invoked by the CEC.

The CEC rejected the candidacy of Roman Mihaes for the reason that only the signatures collected in 13 of the 31 territorial-administrative units of the second level covered by his initiative team met the conditions for being validated.