The chairman of the parliamentary group of the Bloc of Communists and Socialists Vlad Batrîncea, Deputy Speaker of Parliament, submitted a complaint to the Central Election Commission regarding the central public administration’s actions to promote the referendum of October 20. According to him, this is a serious violation of the Electoral Code as the election campaign has not started. The MP says the involvement of public institutions and officials in promoting the referendum represents use of the administrative resource, IPN reports.
In a press briefing, Vlad Batrîncea said that, even in the case of a campaign for the organization of a referendum, the Electoral Code provides that the participants need to register. Only registered participants have the right to promote ideas for this referendum or come up with ideas for boycotting the plebiscite. “Why does the CEC not react to the use of administrative resources? Ministers, heads of institutions are fully involved in this campaign, although the electoral campaign has not yet begun. It is also outrageous when representatives of the Government, including from districts, force the local authorities to get involved in the campaign to promote the referendum,” said the Deputy Speaker. He noted that information about the referendum is also posted on the web pages of a number of public institutions.
“We want to get a legal argument from the CEC – why doesn’t the CEC react today when public money, official state resources, civil servants, public institutions are involved in the campaign to promote the referendum before the legal periods of this campaign?” said the leader of the BCS group.
On October 20, the Republic of Moldova will hold presidential election and a constitutional referendum on joining the European Union. The Party of Socialists has previously announced that it will boycott the referendum, while the Party of Communists said that it will urge the people to vote in the referendum “against” the amendment of the Constitution.
