Parliament clarifies procedure for MPs by-election

Within 10 days after a seat in Parliament is declared vacant, the Central Election Commission shall decide whether or not the first un-elected candidate on the list of the political party whose MP held the vacant seat may fill the vacancy, and submit its decision to the Constitutional Court for confirmation. The Parliament passed on Thursday a relevant bill. MP Dumitru Braghis, one of the bill authors, said the electoral laws must be amended in order to remove the ambiguities that led to the situation where the Parliament has been unable to fill a vacant seat for two months now, even though the Law on the MP Status stipulates a term of 30 days for that. On October 5, the Parliament declared the seat of a MP elected on the party list of the former Moldova Democrat Bloc as vacant. As one of the successors of the former Bloc, the Moldova Noastra Alliance, didn’t claim the vacancy for itself, neither the Central Election Commission nor the Constitutional Court have been able to give the vacant seat to the next candidate on the Bloc’s list, Braghis explained. The next on the list is Dumitru Godoroja, currently a member of the Social Democracy Party, whose president is MP Dumitru Braghis.