The Central Election Commotion (CEC) has fulfilled its legal duties associated with the organization of the snap parliamentary elections, creating equal conditions for all the participants in the electoral process, said CEC president Dorin Cimil. Nevertheless, the Government hasn’t yet managed to allocate the sums needed for holding the elections, while the MPs didn’t adjust and didn’t improve the normative framework.
According to Dorin Cimil, as the elections of July 11 are not ordinary one, the state budget for this year does not include financial resources for organizing the elections. The CEC approved an expenditure estimate, but the Government allocated only 70 million lei from the Reserve Fund. After determining the costs, it was decided that an extra sum of 22.46 million lei is needed for remunerating the members of electoral offices of polling stations and the technical personnel on election day.
The official noted the bill to amend the Election Code and the related legislation was given a first reading only even if it was approved of by the Venice Commission and ODIHR. The adoption of this law would have offered solutions to a number of situations experienced by the electoral authority, such as electoral disputes, financing of the election campaign, ensuring of the right to vote of the citizen abroad and on the left side of the Nistru, combating of organized transportation of voters.
In another development, Dorin Cimil said over 1,800 persons are competing for 101 seats of MP. The over 3.6 million ballots were printed and distributed. The first ballots were sent to polling stations abroad. Tomorrow morning, the ballots will be distributed to the stations inside the country. Five of the 23 election contenders didn’t open an “Electoral Fund” account and didn’t report earnings or campaign costs.
CEC accredited 1,800 national observers and over 600 international observers to oversee the elections that will take place by obeying the COVID-19 protection measures. The Commission supports the campaign “After voting go to get a vaccine”. All the vaccination units in the country will have a longer working program on election day.
CEC vice president Vladimir Șarban provided details about the financing of elections. He said CEC received 70 million lei from the Government and COVID-19 protection items, such as masks, gloves and visors, to the value of over 12 million lei from the Ministry of Health. These costs were included in the initial expenditure estimate. About 7 million lei was spent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration on the needs of polling stations established abroad.
CEC secretary Maxim Lebedinschi said the whole voting process will be recorded this year, by ensuring the secrecy of the ballot. The storage capacity of cameras enables to do this. The voters will be informed about the recording by a poster.
