Less than a month after the consultative referendum on mineral resource exploitation, a group of residents from Cosnita commune, Dubasari district, tried to initiate a new local referendum, this time to revoke the mayor. However, the Central Electoral Commission rejected the registration request of the initiative group, finding that the conditions stipulated by the Electoral Code were not met, reports IPN.
The CEC reporter, Dana Munteanu, explained that the main issue was the non-compliance with the procedure for establishing the initiative group. Although initially 23 members of the group were declared, checks showed that seven of them were not listed among the participants at the founding meeting. Subsequently, the organizers presented additional documents to demonstrate the presence of six of these people, but the Commission found that these were drawn up after the meeting took place and cannot remove the procedural irregularities.
Consequently, the CEC concluded that the initiative group is left with only 16 validated members, below the minimum threshold of 20 provided by the legislation. The Commission members emphasized that they do not examine the reasons invoked for the mayor’s dismissal, but only the compliance with the legal conditions necessary for the registration of the initiative group.
The Vice President of the CEC, Pavel Postica, clarified that the rejection of the request does not prevent the residents of the commune from restarting the procedure. He explained that, if all legal requirements regarding the establishment of the initiative group are met, citizens can submit a new request to initiate the referendum.
At the end of June, in the commune of Coșnița, a referendum was held, initiated by the local council, in which over 95% of participants voted against the change of purpose of some agricultural lands from the outskirts for the exploitation of mineral resources.
