Dodon: I Will Not Participate in Pre-Election Debates

President Igor Dodon said that the supporting his candidacy initiative group has already collected the necessary signatures for registration as a participant in the November 1, presidential election race. They will be presented to the central electoral body later. The head of state also noted that he will not participate in the pre-election debates, at least until November 1, ipn.md reported. “We have already collected all the signatures. As my colleagues who collect signatures have informed me, 25,000 signatures have been collected. We will not rush to present them. Probably tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, our colleagues from the headquarters will separately check each list. And we will submit them next week or in a week, because the legal deadline for submitting the entire package of documents for registration is, if I'm not mistaken, September 30th. We still have time,” Igor Dodon said during a special broadcast on Prime TV on the evening of September 16. The head of state clarified he is running in elections as an independent candidate, because the legislation provides that the president cannot be a member of a party, cannot participate in the activities of one or another party and vice versa. “Therefore, to exclude risks, legal interpretations, including possible protests to the election results, which, I think, will be favorable to us, after the elections, and when it is necessary to approve this result in the Constitutional Court, we considered that this decision would be correct from a legal point of view and less risky,” the president said. Igor Dodon admitted the possibility the Socialist Party will support him. Igor Dodon said that during this election campaign he will not mention names of any electoral competitors, “because people are not interested in mutual accusations”. According to him, he wants all the electoral competitors to propose specific things aimed at country development. The president added he had decided not to participate in the election debate until at least November 1. He also decided that during the current campaign, he would not use billboards for his own promotion. According to him, "it is cynical spending money on these things while pandemic and drought."