The Shor Party should draw its conclusions after Marina Tauber was removed from the Bălți mayoral race, said CEC secretary Alexandr Berlinschii, who recalled other cases when the party was warned or outright excluded from electoral competitions for similar violations.
“Sadly, it’s not the first time this party has been excluded from elections. For example, there is the case of 2016, when it got itself removed from the presidential race also for campaign financing issues. Then there was the case of 2019 with the election in the Hâncești constituency, when the party’s candidate was excluded for irregularities in the electoral campaign. And, unfortunately, we have something similar now. This party should draw its conclusion and abide by the law,” said Alexandr Berlinschii, secretary of the Central Electoral Commission, during an IPN debate.
The official noted that the penalty of removing a candidate for campaign financing violations, in particular for going over the spending limit, is explicitly stated in the Electoral Code. “The CEC decision was based on evidence, specifically receipts issued by the service providers concerned,” says Berlinschii. Subsequently, those arguments were upheld by the Bălți district court and appellate court.
As concerns the CEC decision to suspend the runoff, less than an hour before polling stations were due to open, Alexandr Berlinschii said that this was the first time that the CEC faced such a situation. At that time, the ruling of the Bălți Court of Appeal was final and enforceable, but not yet irreversible. “Had the Supreme Court of Justice ruled differently and the Shor Party candidate remained in the race, then that would have been a really unprecedented situation”, says the CEC secretary, adding:
“I believe that the CEC took a legal decision (to suspend the runoff)”.
Shortly, the Supreme Court issued the irreversible decision to remove the candidate. Despite this, the Chișinău Court of Appeals now has before it two appeals filed by the Shor Party: one challenging the suspension of the December 5 runoff and another one challenging its rescheduling for December 19. The CEC has submitted its positions and is now awaiting the decision, says Alexandr Berlinschi.
The debate dedicated to the Bălți mayoral election was the 217th installment of the “Developing Political Culture” Series, an IPN project implemented with the support of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
