The appraisal of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of the draft law proposed by Liberal-Democratic MPs, by which the Election Code is modified to ensure special rights for the voters from the diaspora, was short of votes for being approved and will be thus debated again in the next meeting of the Commission, IPN reports.
The bill provides that the Moldovans who settled abroad will be able to vote with the identity card or the temporary identity card, not only with the passport, that elections abroad will be held during two consecutive days by providing the polling places with at least 5,000 ballots and that the diaspora voters will have the right to finance election campaigns or electoral contenders.
When presenting the appraisal, CEC vice president Rodica Ciubotaru, referring to the proposal to introduce the notion of “diaspora voter” in the Election Code, said the notion of “voter” stipulated in the legislation covers all the Moldovan citizens. As to the offering of special rights to the voters from the diaspora, she said it is within the exclusive remit of Parliament to set a larger number of documents based on which the citizens abroad can vote and to decide new criteria based on which polling places can be established abroad.
As regards the proposal to enable the citizens abroad to file challenges online on the CEC’s website, Rodica Ciubotaru said the given amendments are not in accordance with the current regulations of the Election Code. Also, the CEC is not empowered to fulfil the duties of banking institutions or of intermediary to enable Moldovans abroad to make donations for parties, including through the website of the Commission.
In the meeting, CEC member Sergiu Gurduza and CEC president Alina Russu had contradictory discussions. The first accused Alina Russu of obstructing the right of a CEC member to formulate proposals for the agenda. Sergiu Gurduza submitted a number of proposals for amending the CEC appraisal on the bill, but was warned that he can present only three proposals.
CEC member Vasile Gafton left the meeting hall in protest at the attitude of president Alina Russu.
While the CEC members were debating the subject, representatives of the diaspora protested outside in support of the bill. They demanded to ensure the right to vote of the over 1 million Moldovans who are abroad.
According to a press release issued by representatives of the diaspora, the participants in the event called on the Central Election Commission to support the proposals formulated by Moldovans from the diaspora and not to allow limiting the participation of the diaspora voters under the non-representative and antidemocratic mixed system with one round of voting.
The diaspora noted that the votes of the Moldovans abroad represented over 10% of the total number of votes even if not all those who wanted could vote. This reveals their high level of civic commitment
