CEC fails to approve formation of Buteni District Electoral Council

The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) on Tuesday, January 15, failed to approve the setting up of the District Electoral Council in Buteni village, Hancesti district, as the CEC members had not come to an agreement on the appropriate candidate. Several CEC members were against the candidacy of Zinovia Scurcan, fielded by the Christian Democratic People’s Party (PPCD), as she had served in the previous Council. CEC Secretary Iurie Ciocan labelled the activity of the former Council as controversial, pointing out its failure to conduct free and fair elections in the village. Ciocan was supported by Pavel Midrigan who wondered why Scurcan would resign from the former Council if she is so keen to lead it again. Ciocan proposed CEC to approve the make-up of the Council in the number of ten persons and to request from PPCD to field another candidate. At the same time, CEC Deputy Chairman Renata Lapti, together with the CEC member Mihai Busuleac, said there is no legal ground to refuse the PPCD candidate. They sought the approval of the Council’s make-up. Neither of the proposals collected the necessary number of votes. The problems in Buteni village appeared after the court invalidated the results of the elections for mayor, according to which the candidate Anatol Postolache scored a comfortable win. Postolache was accused of violating the Electoral Code. CEC announced rerun elections for July 1, but the election outcome was again invalidated. CEC arranged rerun elections in Buteni for October 14 and then for December 16, but in both cases disgruntled villagers blocked the access to the polling station in protest against the CEC decision to take Postolache off the ballot. On December 16 the Electoral Council resigned, and later that month CEC decided to schedule new mayor elections for March 2, 2008.