At this moment, the citizens of the Republic of Moldova indisputably want the political class to be reformed and thus fell into the trap of the uninominal voting, spokesman for the European People’s Party, Member of the European Parliament Siegfried Muresan stated in the panel discussion “Insisting on the democratic principles on the European integration path of the Republic of Moldova” held within the international conference “Replacement of the electoral system: Pros and Cons” that was held in Chisinau last weekend, IPN reports.
The MEP said the citizens of the Republic of Moldova want more honest politicians who didn’t break the law and are ready to discuss any initiative that can bring more competent people to Parliament. Romania had two legislative bodies with uninominal voting system and didn’t have a more correct Parliament, while the then MPs voted against the annulment of the parliamentary immunity. Also, the European Commission’s reports say justice in Romania made big progress, but Parliament is the least trusted institution and this is a risk for the good functioning of justice. A solution is for parties in Moldova to adopt a code of ethics and conduct so as to regain the people’s confidence and there is no need to replace the whole electoral system.
In the same connection, the European official said that when a government tries to swiftly modify the electoral legislation, one year and a half before the parliamentary elections, this thing should alarm civil society, the mass media, etc. “My fist piece of advice is for the government that wants genuine debates to start by saying that the legislation for the 2018 elections will not be modified and this is a debate with parties, society to consider if the voting system should be modified and to do this in the long run. The government that does changes with an immediate impact tempts us to suspect it of pursuing particular goals. It makes us suspect that the ruling party aims to gain particular advantages,” stated Siegfried Muresan, noting that Moldova now faces problems that need to be deal with immediately, such as improvement of the electoral process, audiovisual code reform, transparency in party funding, territorial decentralization etc.
“Viitorul” expert Ion Tabarta said the authors of the proposed bill say no electoral system is perfect and each of these have advantages and disadvantages. The problem of this bill is that its authors speak only about the disadvantages of the proportional representation system and the advantages of the uninominal voting system. “Modern democracies are representative democracies. It is well known that a majority system has more shortcomings in terms of political representation. It does not reflect that mosaic that exists in society. Another shortcoming of the majority system is that the vote of the defeated one is not representative, while the winner takes it all,” stated the expert.
According to the deputy head of the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova Tudor Deliu, the bill authors assert the uninominal voting system is better for Moldova, but it’s not clear what goal is pursued by this – to make the MPs more responsible or to ensure that someone can keep power? Discussions should have been held on all the electoral systems, including the mixed system, the system with open lists, etc.
Political analyst Cornel Ciurea said there is no yet consensus on the introduction of the uninominal voting system, but there are parties whose programs stipulate this. The Liberal Democratic Party and the Party of Socialists earlier asserted that they support the mixed electoral system. In such conditions, consensus could appear in Parliament and the change initiated by the Democrats could be experienced by all those who want it. Some of the parties reject the idea of uninominal voting because they fear the Democratic Party will realize its potential.
The international conference “Replacement of the electoral system: Pros and Cons” was organized by the Kondrad-Adenauer Stiftung and Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung Moldova in partnership with the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT and the Institute for Development and Social Initiative “Viitorul”.
