Moldovan Parties May Be Banned from Participating in Elections in Gagauzia

A new scheme was proposed in the Gagauz autonomy for electing deputies to the National Assembly, as well as a ban for Moldovan parties to nominate their representatives to the regional legislative power. Such legislative initiative to amend the Electoral Code of Gagauzia was proposed by the deputy of the National Assembly of Gagauzia Sergey Cimpoies. According to him, the current legislation stipulates the need to elect each member of the National Assembly by approximately equal number of voters. At the same time, everyone, even the smallest locality of Gagauzia, should have its representative in the National Assembly. So that the law is not violated, as is happening now, when one deputy can be elected by several hundred people, and another by several thousand, Sergey Cimpoies has proposed a new scheme for electing Gagauz lawmakers. The deputy proposes to form five second-level constituencies in Gagauzia, which would include seven first-level constituencies. In practice, this means that on election day, each voter of a second-level constituency receives seven ballots, thus electing seven deputies at once. In order to win a candidate must gain the support of more than half of the votes from the voters who took part in voting in the second-level constituencies as a whole. Innovation is that there will no longer be the second round, as well as by-election. And if the deputy later decided to leave the National Assembly, the second-placed candidate takes his/her seat. Also, the Moldovan political parties, as legal entities, are excluded from participating in elections on the territory of Gagauzia. This practice is successful for the Alan Islands and other political autonomous entities in Europe. “This will allow one or another civic organization of Gagauzia (for example, United Gagauzia, New Gagauzia, Gagauz Khalky and others) to form working bodies and leadership of the National Assembly. Thus, assuming political responsibility for the further development of Gagauzia for the next four years after the elections, if their representatives win the majority of deputy seats in the National Assembly,” reads the explanatory note to the bill. Let us recall that the National Assembly of Gagauzia involves 35 deputies. Noi.md