The Communist Party (PCRM) on Wednesday, March 2, submitted a legislative proposal in an attempt to restore the old provision of the Election Code which stipulated a proportional allocation of the seats remaining after the apportionment of the initial seats. The proposal sparked heated debates in the Legal Commission. According to the author of the bill, Communist MP Anatolie Zagorodnii, the old allocation system worked well and met all the European requirements. He said that when the Alliance for European Integration decided to change the method, it didn't have the approval of the Council of Europe, in particular the Venice Commission, and the OSCE. In retort, Liberal leader Mihai Ghimpu said the international organizations didn't have any objection to the new method of successive allocation of remainder seats. “The current system is meant to respect the citizens' vote. In the old system the citizens' vote for a right-wing party, after re-allocation, would go to a leftist party, and vice versa” said Mihai Ghimpu. The old system, which favors big parties, enabled the PCRM with 50% of the popular vote to obtain 71 seats in the 2001 elections, recalled Ghimpu. Liberal Victor Popa, the chairman of the Legal Commission, also maintained that the current seat allocation method is effective, whereas the previous system tended to steal seats from the small parties. The debate ended with the PCRM members in the Commission accusing the ruling Alliance of paying heed to the European recommendations only when it find it convenient. Under the current system of apportioning legislative seats, the remainder seats are allocated successively, by one to each party, in descending order.