The Central Election Commission gave details about the examination of the application to register the initiative group for holding a national legislative referendum after the issue has been intensely discussed in the public sphere. In a press release, the Commission said it has been subject to attacks and witnessed attempts to discredit it, IPN reports.
The CEC identified discrepancies between the text of the proceedings adopted by the participants in the assembly to constitute the initiative group and the document presented to the Commission, but the substitution of the initial data is inadmissible. Also, in the constitution assembly it was announced that the number of participants in this stood at 653, while the voting procedure, including the vote to choose the members of the initiative group, involved 735 persons. The legal provisions concerning the choosing of concrete persons as members of the initiative group were violated as the nominal list of the initiative group members hasn’t been subject to the vote, as the Election Code provides.
The Election Code also stipulates that the members of the initiative group will choose from among themselves an executive bureau consisting of a president, a vice president and a secretary that will represent the group and will organize its activity. The CEC ascertained that the initiative group’s decision concerning the election of the executive bureau, countersigned by the chosen president, was absent, as was the decision of the initiative group’s executive bureau concerning the designation of the treasurer in the relations with the Commission, for coordinating the financing of the campaign prior to the referendum in accordance with the regulations regarding the activity of the initiative group for holding a national referendum.
The CEC also noted that the initiative group proposed abrogating a law without suggesting new regulations instead. A legal vacuum as to the organization of the ordinary parliamentary elections will thus appear. The Venice Commission’s recommendations included in the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters of 2002 say that the fundamental elements of electoral law, including the electoral system, should not be open to amendment less than one year before an election.
The Commission said the process of examining the application to register the initiative group for holding a national legislative referendum was transparent and professional, while the adopted decision was communicated to the public opinion and representatives of the diplomatic corps working in Moldova.
