Ruslan Codreanu, the former acting mayor of Chisinau, has called for electoral officials to step down over what he believes was a politically motivated decision to deny him participation in the mayoral race.

First the Chisinau electoral body, then the Central Electoral Commission refused to formally register Codreanu after some 800 of the 10,000 signatures required of him as an independent candidate were scrapped as invalid. In the ensuing legal battle, Codreanu managed to get the missing signatures validated by an appeal court earlier this week, only to see the Supreme Court of Justice on Friday uphold the original decision.

Codreanu denies there is anything wrong with the signatures and accuses both the electoral authorities and the judiciary of following political orders from the ruling coalition. He believes the Chisinau mayor’s seat has already been assigned in some kind of a secret power-sharing deal between the coalition components ACUM and PSRM.

Ruslan Codreanu said that he informed the EU Delegation, the US Embassy and other foreign diplomatic missions, as well as election monitoring organizations, showing them the evidence presented in court.

Codreanu now plans to seek redress at the European Court of Human Rights, provided that he is able to raise the money needed for representation costs.