The diaspora of the Republic of Moldova will be underrepresented in the parliamentary elections of 2018 because the Moldovan citizens who are abroad will be represented by only three MPs in Parliament, said experts and politicians invited to the talk show “Geopolitics” produced by Noroc TV channel, IPN reports.
Sergiu Litvinenko, a member of the Party “Action and Solidarity”, said that if the voter turnout in the upcoming parliamentary elections is similar to that in the last presidential elections, the weight of the vote of a Moldovan in Italy will be nine times lower than the electoral power of a vote in Russia. “In relation to the left side of the Nistru, the electoral power of a vote of a citizen from Italy compared with a vote that will be cast in the Transnistrian region will be 15 times lower. Practically, this means that the vote of a Transnistrian is equal to 15 votes in Italy,” he stated.
Victor Juc, vice director of the Institute of Legal and Political Research of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova, said the blame for the low number of constituencies that will be opened abroad is borne by the MPs who didn’t do correct calculations when they adopted the law. “They could have constituted electoral districts of 80,000-90,000 voters in the country and the number of constituencies abroad would have been much higher. I also think much more constituencies should have been established abroad given the realities in the Republic of Moldova. But they adopted the decision by a majority of votes and that’s the way it is,” stated Victor Juc.
Igor Bucataru, head of the analysis team of Promo-LEX, noted the association he represents did its own calculations and determined that six constituencies should have been established abroad. “Three for Europe, two for the CIS and one for America. For us, it is important that the criteria be neutral and fixed, without political partisanship, so as to see what result we achieve based on them,” he said
The national commission for the establishment of permanent single-member constituencies decided that the Transnistrian region will be entitled to two seats of MP after the legislative elections of 2018, based on the created constituencies, while the diaspora to three. The elections will take place based on the mixed-member electoral system that was adopted by Parliament in summer.
