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| Veaceslav Craciun | |
Only two representatives of the Autonomous Territorial Unit (ATU) of Gagauzia could enter the future Parliament of Moldova. The authorities of Gagauzia consider such representation is inequitable and insist on a bigger quota. The demands of Comrat are actively supported by the Socialists, who are the authors of the given electoral reform.
Special approach to Taraclia
Last Friday, there were presented the first electoral constituencies where single MPs will be elected in the next parliamentary elections. Chairman of the commission responsible for this activity Iurie Ciocan said this is for now only a draft decision and the boundaries of constituencies can be yet modified. A constituency has more than 60,000 voters on average. Some of these coincide with the boundaries of the current districts (raions), while others consist of settlements from two or even three territorial-administrative units of the second level. Taraclia district will have one constituency, while ATU Gagauzia two constituencies. The authorities of Gagauzia are not satisfied with such a decision and, judging by the circumstances, hope that this will be reviewed.
While presenting images with the maps of constituencies, Iurie Ciocan made a remark about the Taraclia electoral district. The procedures for establishing this are specific and pursue the goal of making sure that the Bulgarian ethnic minorities are politically represented in Parliament. The ex-president of the Central Election Commission invoked the norms of the Council of Europe and the recommendations of the Venice Commission according to which the electoral constituencies are to be established so that the national minorities are not fused with the voters of the majority ethnic group, guaranteeing thus the expression of their political will.
As a result, Taraclia district was formed to be disproportionally small. It consists of Taraclia town and 14 communities with only 35,000 voters. It seems that the Bulgarian community will be one of the few communities that will be satisfied with such tailoring of the electoral map. Anyway, their Gagauz neighbors will definitely challenge such a decision of the commission.
To establish the Gagauz constituencies, there was used the same calculation formula as for the other districts. The first Gagauz constituency will include Comrat town and 13 villages of the district and will comprise 64,824 voters. The second constituency will consist of Ceadar-Lunga and Vulcanesti towns and of another ten settlements of the two districts and the voters there will total 65,346.
Gagauzia wants more
The official representatives of Comrat repeatedly declared that the quota of Gagauzia in Parliament should be of at least three MPs. “Otherwise, the ongoing electoral system reform will cause the deserved indignation and rejection on the part of the regional and local public authorities and the sociopolitical forces of ATU Gagauzia and will undermine the locals’ confidence in the future parliamentary elections,” says the recent statement issued by Bashkan Irina Vlah.
The chairman of the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia Vladimir Kyssa expressed a similar opinion. Of the political forces of the Republic of Moldova, only the Socialists supported the demands of the Gagauz authorities. President Igor Dodon repeatedly said that he will support the demands concerning the quota of three MPs for Gagauzia and promised the administration of Gagauzia that he will do his best to obtain this. The President’s adviser on legal matters Maxim Lebedinski, in one of the last meetings of the commission, said that special criteria should be applied in the case of Gagauzia so as to ensure the representation of national minorities.
The irony resides in the fact that this commission respects the mentioned criteria. The changes to the Election Code that were drafted by the Party of Socialists and adopted in summer specify the procedure for establishing electoral constituencies on the territory of Gagauzia – the one about which Iurie Ciocan spoke with reference to Taraclia The given norm was included in connection with the relevant recommendations formulated by the Venice Commission, which on June 19, 2017 issued its opinion about the electoral system reform in Moldova. In particular this document stipulates that:
“The efficient representation of the Gagauz minorities will depend on the exact delimitation of the boundaries of electoral constituencies. It is reasonable to establish constituencies neighboring Gagauzia so that these do not include segments of the territory of the territorial autonomous unit”.
The Venice Commission didn’t formulate other recommendations for ensuring the representation of the Gagauz minorities. For their part, the Socialists, being the authors of the electoral reform, didn’t envision additional criteria for Gagauzia concerning the formation of constituencies. As a result, Iurie Ciocan’s commission, following the norm regarding the keeping of the administrative border of Gagauzia, made no exception for the ATU as regards the number of established constituencies. The adopted law provided no reasons for doing this.
Inconsistency of Socialists
It is worth noting the reference made in the Venice Commission’s opinion to the law of 2013 concerning the implementation of the mixed electoral system, which envisioned the creation of three electoral constituencies in ATU Gagauzia. The given law was drafted by Vladimir Plahotniuc, Andrian Candu and Vasile Botnari. The Venice Commission published its opinion on this in 2014.
“In the joint opinion of 2014, there were presented particular reserves as to the criteria for establishing these three electoral constituencies, but the idea of introducing specific “Gagauz” electoral constituencies is welcome,” says the Venice Commission’s opinion of 2017.
Continuing the theme of the non-adopted bills on the electoral system reform, we should remember the Democratic Party’s bill concerning the uninominal voting system that the Democrats registered in Parliament on March 14 this year. The bill didn’t specify special privileges for Gagauzia, but the proportional establishment of single-member constituencies offered Gagauzia the possibility of having at least four representatives in Parliament.
It is hard to name the decision adopted by Iurie Ciocan’s commission concerning Gagauzia a surprise. Comrat can have solid reasons to consider it inequitable, but it fully complies with the new electoral legislation. However, the position of the President and the Party of Socialists that now support Comrat’s demands concerning the “quota of Gagauzia”, but plead for modifying the rules that they themselves formulated and approved is rather surprising.
Veaceslav Craciun, Comrat
IPN publishes in the Op-Ed rubric opinion pieces submitted by authors not affiliated with our editorial board. The opinions expressed in these articles do not necessarily coincide with the opinions of our editorial board.
