CEC REGISTERS DP AND MCP AS REFERENDUM PARTICIPANTS

On Friday, the Moldovan Central Election Commission registered the ruling Democratic Party and the Communist Party as official participants in the nation-wide referendum to be held simultaneously with the ordinary parliamentary elections – on February 24, 2019.

These two organizations have thus acquired the right to conduct their explanatory campaigning for or against the referendum that will consist of 2 questions – on the expediency of reducing the Moldovan Parliament’s strength to 61 MPs from the current 101, and on introducing imperative mandates for Moldovan lawmakers.

The Democrats and Communists submitted their documents for registration to the CEC on December 26. The Democratic Party, being the referendum initiator, is going to persuade citizens to answer the two questions positively, while the Communists will be working for negative answers.

Earlier this year, ex-President of Moldova Vladimir Voronin, the MCP Chairman, criticized the idea to reduce the Moldovan deputy corps, having named it “an obvious foolishness that can be offered only by people who do not understand the role played by the Parliament in the life of the country”. Voronin stated then that the Communist Party would boycott the referendum.

Although the Constitutional Court ruled in 2014 that it is unlawful to hold referenda together with elections, last November 30 the DP-led parliamentary majority nevertheless railroaded necessary amendments to the Election Code to overcome the CC judgment.

The February 24 plebiscite will be a consultative referendum, so it will have no legal consequences. But its holding will all the same take over 10 million lei from the State Budget, according to CEC’s estimates.

The idea to have the referendum on the election day caused a wave of criticism by the local expert community (which perceived the referendum as a mechanism for preserving the ruling Democratic Party in power) and by the country’s European partners. In particular, Ambassador Peter Michalko, the Head of the European Union Delegation to the Republic of Moldova, stated that the practice of revoking deputies from parliament contradicts to European standards.

Besides the MCP and DP, no other parties have stated yet their intention to take part in the pre-referendum campaigning.