Politics

PRESIDENT DODON NAMES 4 CONDITIONS FOR TRANSITING TO MIXED ELECTORAL SYSTEM

21 june, 2017

Moldovan President Igor Dodon has formulated 4 principal conditions, on which the Party of Socialists will support the country’s transition to the mixed electoral system.

The head of state wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday: “We will support the change of the electoral legislation only if a draft law to this effect contains the following 4 very important items:

(1) We are categorically against lowering the electoral barrier for political parties – it must remain at the present level of 6% ballots;

(2) Elections must be held in only one round, in which the candidate who wins more votes than all the rest candidates becomes a parliament deputy;

(3) Seats in the Moldovan Parliament must be necessarily reserved for deputies from Transnistria – real representatives of the region; and

(4) Extra polling stations must be opened in foreign countries for the Moldovan diaspora representatives, mostly in the Russian Federation, so that our citizens could take part in elections more actively.

“If these conditions remain in the bill text, we will vote for it in parliament in a second reading. If our colleagues in the Parliament refuse to include into the law even one of the four conditions, we shall not vote for such document”, wrote President Igor Dodon.

On June 19, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights made public their Common Opinion on the Moldovan Democratic Party’s bill on introducing the mixed electoral system in the republic. The Venice Commission assessed the bill extremely critically, saying that this electoral system reform is leaving a number of questions and apprehensions, including the risk that members of parliament may find themselves under the influence of business elites. The Commission recommended not changing the voting system in the absence of a broad political consensus and in the conditions of society polarization.

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