Shor Party representatives have repeatedly and deliberately violated electoral law, being removed from the race, and indulgence should not apply to repeat offenders, said Igor Boțan during an IPN debate on the issue. According to the expert, Marina Tauber’s removal from the Bălți mayoral race was hardly the work of PAS, as it knew that a pro-European had almost no chance of conquering the “capital of the North”.
Boțan suggested that the only way the government did influence Tauber’s removal was through its general message that state institutions must do their job.
“We have to make a distinction between political influence and a political hit job, because any new government influences processes in one way or another. What could be PAS’s interest in the particular caser of Marina Tauber? PAS, or any pro-European party for that matter, could only hope for a quarter of votes in Bălți at most. What could be PAS’s goal if their candidate didn’t even make the second round? If PAS was behind such a political hit job, it means they haven’t thought about the consequences at all, which is implausible”, said Boțan.
He added that he considered the decision to suspend the runoff election in Bălți to be reasonable, as it avoided a scenario where the runoff would be held only to be invalidated in court later by an irreversible decision.
“We have the rulings of three courts that resolved this situation. We also have the CEC decision that put the interest of the voters above, because no matter how hard we try, we won’t have a legal provision for every possible situation. Therefore, the CEC, which is an institution composed of lawyers, has the right to apply legal logic when situations arise that are not explicitly regulated in the Electoral Code. This violation of the electoral legislation is a recidivism, because previously Shor Party candidates were thrice removed from elections for violations”, said Boțan, adding that Marina Tauber had been warned in the first round for failing to fully declare campaign costs.
“Indulgence should not apply to repeat offenders, you can apply the principle of indulgence to those who make mistakes for the first time. For those who repeatedly violate the law, and the CEC has demonstrated this, this principle does not apply. Civil society organizations specializing in electoral processes have an institutional memory and know that this party was built around so-called social groceries, and NGOs have repeatedly protested, citing Moldovan legislation and international experience that clearly states that political parties must promote ideas, but not services or gifts to voters. We know that all the 200,000 customers of the social grocery stores have a card with the Shor Party written on it”, Igor Boțan also said.
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.
