The Liberal-Democratic MPs introduced into Parliament a bill to add a new article to the Election Code entitled “Special rights of the diaspora voters”. Under the proposed amendments, if parliamentary and presidential elections and national referendums are held, any citizen of the Republic of Moldova eligible to vote, who is outside the country, will be able to vote at any polling place established abroad, regardless of the status of their stay on the territory of the given state, IPN reports.

The head of the Liberal-Democratic parliamentary group Tudor Deliu told a news conference that the citizens from the diaspora should be able to vote with the identity card of the citizen of the Republic of Moldova, the temporary identity card with the mention about the nationality of the Republic of Moldova and with the passport for entering or leaving the country. The elections abroad should be held during two consecutive days – on Saturday and Sunday or on another two consecutive days indicated in election setting document. For each election day, the electoral bureau of the polling place should draw up separate reports on the voting results.

The bill provides that the polling places established outside the country should be supplied with at least 5,000 ballots, not 3,000 as now. The citizens from the diaspora should be able to finance the favorite candidate or party by contributing the equivalent of at most five official monthly average salaries in the course of a year.

Tudor Deliu said the latest data presented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, 805,500 Moldovans worked and lived abroad in 2016. This is 21% of Moldova’s population. According to other data, provided by the Venice Commission, the Moldovan voters who were permanently or temporarily abroad in 2017 represented 1/3 of the electors put on voter rolls.