Igor Boțan, executive director of the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT, said there have always been interests for the elections to be won by the main players that will evidently resort to instruments that can help them win, such as administrative resources, the vote in the Transnistrian region, the vote in the diaspora etc. That’s why it is important to remove all the problems mentioned by the Constitutional Court in its recommendations issued after the presidential elections of 2016 by the end of the current parliamentary session, which is by the end of July. The expert stated his opinions in a public debate titled “Why wasn’t the Constitutional Court heard in the problem of presidential elections?”, which was staged by IPN News Agency.
The IPN Project’s standing Igor Boțan said that if the given problems are not solved, a series of risks will persist. “The most important thing is that the political risks will cause social risks, degradation of the living standards and others as society not always is interested in realizing political aspects. Shrewd politicians often profited from protests,” he stated.
The ADEPT director reminded of the protests of 2015, when people protested against the bank theft and against those who ruled then. “I discovered an extraordinary thing. While we were protesting, 70% of the people in Orhei voted for Shor. Five years have passed since then, in 2015, and we do not yet know anything about the bank theft. So, the people have experience already,” stated Igor Boțan.
According to him, even if a series of problems persist, the country also has an Association Agreement with the EU, which is an extraordinary economic power and can help Moldova in these hard times caused by the pandemic, the socioeconomic crisis. “If the authorities in Chisinau are unable to keep the Republic of Moldova in a democratic framework, as it is stipulated in the Association Agreement, the state can miss the opportunities of being supported and of overcoming this very difficult stage with the assistance of the development partners. Even if we are a small society, we also expect things to return to normality after about 30 years of Independence so that the political class obeys clearly defined rules, the citizens know that their votes indeed influence things and feel that they are not misled by propaganda, fake news, charity foundations, etc. And these aspects are mentioned in the Constitutional Court’s recommendations of December 2016,” said the expert.
According to him, the people want political stability and predictable things and the state institutions, the political parties and civil society specialized in elections should combine forces so as to help the country return to normality.
Igor Boțan also said that ADEPT, which ensures the secretariat of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Electors, fully supports the Public Call made by Promo-LEX Association, which refers to the necessity of immediately solving the legal problems that can affect the conduct of this autumn’s presidential elections. The Coalition wants a partnership with the CEC, Parliament, political parties, civil society, including through dialogue with the development partners, so as to remove the impediments by common effort and the elections are free and fair.
The debate “Why wasn’t the Constitutional Court heard in the problem of presidential elections?” was the 132nd installment of the series of debates “Developing political culture through public debates” that are supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.