Contender excluded from electoral race for Moldovan president office

Chisinau, 21 October  /MOLDPRES/ – The candidate for head of state from the party Ravnopravie (Equality of rights) Inna Popenco, was excluded from the electoral race today, based on a Court of Appeal’s decision. A request to this effect was submitted to the Central Election Commission (CEC).

CEC member Maxim Lebedinschi said that the decision was taken after examining the complaint lodged with the Commission by candidate Silvia Radu. As such, the Commission found that Inna Popenco used in the presidential election campaign undeclared funds and took actions to corrupt voters. "The contender Inna Popenco’s representatives recently organized an event, where voters were given free discount cards for a social shop, which is supposed to be opened. At the same time, there was imaged the candidate's electoral symbol on the card, while the sources and discounts were not listed in the financial report," Lebedinschi said.

At her turn, Inna Popenco said that CEC actions performed are qualified as pressure to order its competitors. "The reaction on opening the social shops illustrates that electoral opponents do not care about people's problems, while the Commission is influenced by unsubstantiated claims," ​​said Popenco.

Denis Ulanov, candidate’s attorney, said that "CEC representatives had only some assumptions, without presenting any substantial evidence. We will appeal against the court’s decision to the Supreme Court and hope the decision will be in our favour," said Ulanov.

Inna Popenco was registered in the electoral race on 26 September 2016, after submitting to CEC about 20 thousand valid signatures in her support.