A number of 125 polling places will be established abroad for the parliamentary elections of February 24, 2019, according to a decision approved by the Government.
The largest number of polling places will be opened in Italy (29), Romania and the U.S (by 12), the Russian Federation (11), France (seven), Portugal and Spain (by five). Four polling places will be established in the UK, by three in Ukraine, Canada and Turkey and by two in Israel, Belgium, Czech Republic, Belarus, Ireland, and Germany. By one polling place will be set up in another 19 countries.
The Party of Socialists (PSRM) expresses its profound indignation at the Government’s decision to establish only 11 polling places for the upcoming parliamentary elections on the territory of the Russian Federation. According to the PSRM, only at most 10% of the Moldovans in Russia will be able to vote at the 11 polling places.
The parliamentary elections of February 24, 2019 will be crucial for the country’s future. These should be free and transparent and should be held in compliance with the international standards. When the electoral cycle is completed, those elected should take over without pauses, stated the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Miroslav Lajčák, Slovakia’s Minister for Foreign and European Affairs, who is paying a visit to Moldova.
Expert of the Institute for Development and Special Initiative “Viitorul” Ion Tăbârță said a part of the citizens know that the electoral system was replaced, but they don’t know why. Even if many know about electoral constituencies, they don’t know in what constituency they vote and who the candidates are. In villages things are simpler as the people know there where they should vote and the number of the constituency is thus less important. Things stand differently in the municipality of Chisinau, where many citizens don’t know what constituency they form part of, not mentioning the electoral contenders.
According to Ion Tăbârță, to amplify the confusion, the ruling party introduced the initiative to hold a consultative plebiscite.
Andrian Candu sought explanations from the NIA after the press published the integrity certificates of two potential candidates who, being convicted by the first court, received different verdicts from the National Integrity Authority. These are the suspended mayor of Orhei town Ilan Shor and the mayor of Râșcani Victor Bogatiko, who is a potential candidate in constituency No. 4, Râșcani. In the case of Bogatiko, the integrity certificate says he was convicted based on Article 326, par. 2 of the Penal Code of the Republic of Moldova, while the certificate of Shor, who was sentenced by the first court, says nothing in this regard.
Cornelia Cozonac, president of the Journalistic Investigations Center, said the National Integrity Authority should also check the correctness of the content of candidates’ property statements. The declaring of incomes and property is important as each candidate wants to hold a public post. This way, the citizen should see what property and incomes the person has and follow how this uses the held post to increase assets.
The Governments forecasts for 2019 an average monthly official salary of 6,975 lei a month, which is by 9% higher than last year’s average pay in nominal terms. The average monthly official salary is used to calculate the mandatory state social insurance contributions. It is also used as a ceiling to calculate the state social insurance allowances and mandatory state social insurance contributions from the financial assistance provided by trade unions and employers.
Wishing to implement swiftly the salary reform, the government made a number of technical mistakes, first of all at the level of the Ministry of Finance, which drafted the salary law, stated Socialist MP Vlad Batrîncea. According to him, the measures taken by the senior administration should not be implemented in a hurry and only for electoral purposes. The MP noted the salaries of some of the young teachers rose, while the pays of teachers with experience either remained at the same level or decreased. Furthermore, the principals of education institutions have lower pays. Problems are also witnessed in the pension system.
An opinion poll shows over 80% of the respondents do not think the judges in Moldova are independents and only 17% of those surveyed have an opposite opinion. As regards the solutions of Moldovan judges, 35% of the lawyers consider them equitable and adopted without influences from outside, while 64% do not agree with such an assertion. The poll was commissioned by the Legal Resources Center of Moldova to the Center for Sociological Investigations and Marketing “CBS-AXA”.
Asked about their perception of the level of corruption in the country, 73% of the interviewed lawyers said this is high, 14% said the level is low, 2% said there is no corruption, while 11% didn’t answer. As regards the development of corruption in justice from 2011 until now, 26% of the respondents said that the phenomenon diminished (15% in 2015), 35% that it is at the same level (28% in 2015), 34% that is rose (53% in 2015). Asked about the perception of corruption in the justice sector, 69% of the lawyers said this is spread at all the levels, while 19% noted this is spread mainly inside the administration of institutions.
The projects of six female photographers from Moldova produced during four months under the guidance of Romanian photo-journalists Ioana Moldovan and Ioana Cîrlig were displayed at the Municipal Library “B. P. Hasdeu” in Chisinau. For photographer Elena Kovalenko, the project was a challenge that generated a lot of emotions. Her protagonists are a married couple of young people with disabilities from Fălești. “Their love for each other helps them overcome all the challenges of life,” stated the photographer.
The exhibition contains about 60 works and will be open to the public until January 31.
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