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REFERENDUM IN GAGAUZIA SHALL BE RECOGNIZED IF VOTER TURNOUT EXCEEDS 50% - BASHKAN FORMUZAL

23 january, 2014
REFERENDUM IN GAGAUZIA SHALL BE RECOGNIZED IF VOTER TURNOUT EXCEEDS 50% - BASHKAN FORMUZAL

A legislative norm is still in force in Gagauzia, according to which the referendum shall be recognized as valid, if the voter turnout is 50% plus one vote, said Gagauzia Bashkan Mikhail Formuzal at a news conference at Infotag today.  

He described the discrepant data published yesterday by some media outlets, which stated that the legislators of the Gagauzia Popular Assembly (GPA) had allegedly changed the threshold of voter turnout for this referendum, as a glaring dissemination of false information.  

“The media outlets that are controlled by certain political forces are deliberately fooling the population, manipulating its conscience. Nowadays, Moldova does not have a free media. Yesterday’s disinformation is a glaring example of how people indulge in wishful thinking,” said the Bashkan.  

In his words, even if the Gagauzia Popular Assembly decides to change the voter turnout threshold, in order to be put into life, this norm shall be approved by the Bashkan.  

“The Bashkan has ten days at his disposal. As many as 2/3 of votes of the legislators in the Gagauzia Popular Assembly are needed to override the veto imposed by the bashkan. I don’t think that this will happen,” he said. Formuzal also said that he does not understand the central authorities’ dissatisfaction with this referendum and the noise stirred up around this by the politically-biased media outlets.     

“I would like to remind everyone that the participants in this referendum will have to answer two questions: How do you see your future: in the cooperation with the European Union or in the cooperation with the Customs Union? At the same time, I would like to draw attention on the fact that this referendum does not examine Moldova’s accession to any of these unions. The Gagauz people are law-obedient citizens, representing a small part of the Moldovan population. They are not separatists. We simply want to know people’s opinion about this and we want to bring it to the notice of central authorities,” the Bashkan stressed.

As already reported by Infotag, the Gagauzia Popular Assembly (GPA) has scheduled for February 2, 2014, a consultative regional referendum to ask citizens’ opinion about which development vector they think Moldova should choose. The Gagauz voters will be requested to answer the following questions: are they standing for Moldova’s integration into the Moscow-led Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, are they supporting the country’s association with the European Union, or are they advocating Moldova’s cooperation with both eastern and western countries? At the same time, the GPA legislators decided to hold a referendum on approving a draft law on the ‘suspended status’ of Gagauz Autonomy, which stipulates that in case Moldova loses its status of independent and sovereign state, the autonomy will become an independent republic.   

 

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