Constantin Oboroc, who intended to compete for the post of President of the Republic of Moldova, but could not collect the necessary number of signatures, said that he never offered money for a signature or a vote. In the process of collecting signatures, one of the most difficult questions put to the initiative group was: “And you, how much money you offer?”. “We do not have and will never have an answer to this question. We didn’t offer money for the signature or the vote. This is our principled stand,” Constantin Oboroc stated in a news conference at IPN.
Constantin Oboroc noted that together with the initiative group, they witnessed unordinary and incredible situations in districts. Before going to a number of districts, they phoned the mayors to inform them about their coming, even if the legislation does not stipulate the necessity of obtaining authorizations for collecting signatures. In the districts of Orhei, Bălţi and Criuleni, they faced the most serious difficulties. In Criuleni, for example, he was met by someone from the public sector who told him that he cannot accompany him as he risks losing his job. Another person who started to collect signatures received a phone call and then left immediately, without any explanation. Also, the initiative group was permanently supervised by a police car.
Constantin Oboroc noted that he also had misunderstandings with representatives of the Bălţi mayor’s office. These humiliated him and refused to talk to him in the official language. “I hope to live on this piece of land when a law will be established here to punish those who belittle our dignity,” he said, adding these persons should be deprived of nationality and expelled from the country.
As to the fact that the initiative group didn’t manage to collect the necessary number of signatures for being registered as a candidate in the presidential election, Constantin Oboroc said he blames no one for this failure. “I assume overall responsibility as I wasn’t convincing, organized and prudent enough. I’m happy I got acquainted with many strong young people who realized the essence of my message, the actions I proposed, as these are not populist and didn’t come out of the blue. They come from my life experience and political activity,” said Constantin Oboroc, noting he saw that some of the people realize that not the money governs.
Dina Diaconu, the head of the initiative group, spoke about another problem faced while collecting signatures. “An account for collecting funds for financing the initiative group was opened with big difficulty. The account number was corrected for four times. We opened it on September 7-10 and in a week we didn’t yet know the account number. The people tried to transfer money to it, but the money went back,” she explained.
The incomplete subscription lists will be submitted to the Central Election Commission on September 30.
