The Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) demands that the Central Election Commission (CEC) should urgently annul the new circular about the funding of the presidential campaign. According to the party’s leader Maia Sandu, this is a new fraud planned by Igor Dodon and his former adviser Maxim Lebedinschi, by which the parties would be banned from financing the campaign of candidates in these elections, IPN reports.
In a news conference, the politician said 316 people during the past two months made donations of 50 lei, 100 lei, 1,000 lei, 5,000 lei and even 20,000 lei to the party. “The CEC’s decision that was dictated by Lebedinschi tries to bar us so that we could not use the resources we gathered from people and saved until now transparently and legally,” stated Maia Sandu.
According to her, the parties on September 15 were issued by the CEC with a circular saying they have no connection with the campaign prior to the presidential elections and the money they gather daily during weeks and months cannot be used in the campaign. “What CEC says is that we should stay and wait patiently for the day of October 1 and to start to collect funds for campaigning only then. This means that if you are not Igor Dodon, who finances his campaign with “bags” with money, you enter the campaign with zero money in the account. If you start to collect funds on October 1 and gather by 50-100 lei a day, by October 27 you can have some funds to print a leaflet and you will have one more day to distribute it all over the country. This will be a very serious campaign.”
PAS vice president Sergiu Litvinenco said the amendment adopted in 2019 provides that the parties receive money from the state for the results achieved by them in the presidential elections. This provision was implemented and the CEC monthly, since September 2019, has allocated money to parties for the results obtained by them in the presidential elections of 2016. There is also the law on political parties, saying that the parties can support the candidates in elections, including financially, without any exception for the presidential elections. “In fact, this is the role played by political parties in a democratic society. On the ballot for the presidential elections, there is both the name of the party and the name of the candidate. It happened so in 2016 and should normally happen in 2020”, said the MP.
He also said that the CEC plays the game of Igor Dodon as he is not the Party of Socialists’ candidate in elections and this party is not a competitor. The goal is thus to exclude all the other parties from the electoral process.
