Draft on switching to uninominal voting system registered in Moldovan parliament

Chisinau, 14 March /MOLDPRES/ - The draft law on the amendment of the Electoral Code and switching to the system of uninominal voting of MPs was recorded in the parliament today. Parliament Speaker Andrian Candu made statements to this effect at a news conference today.

According to the speaker, the draft is to be sent to the Venice Commission for expertise. ”The registration does not mean that the draft will be voted soon. We have registered the document, in order it to be submitted to the Venice Commission for legal expertise. Also today, we will initiate procedures to carry out public discussions. This draft law will not be voted unless comprehensive debates are organized and unless we have the notification by the Venice Commission,” Andrian Candu said.   

The parliament speaker noted that the draft provides for the creation of 101 uninominal electoral districts. “One lawmaker will be voted in each district. For the Diaspora, preliminary registration will be initially organized, in order to learn how many voters there are and depending on the results, uninominal districts will be set up. At the same time, for the Transnistrian region, districts will be allocated depending on the number of voters in the zone; yet, elections will not be organized unless the authorities make sure that the polls are carried out democratically and correctly,” Candu specified.    

Under the document, the candidates will have to collect at least 1,000 signatures and submit a string of documents, including the integrity record. The winner in the elections will be the person picking up most votes in the concerned electoral district. A clear-cut mechanism of the polls’ validation is also stipulated. “An MP will not be able to be recalled from office in the first and last years of mandate, in order to exclude abuses. The lawmaker’s recalling will be made by a local referendum and the decision will be taken by the accumulation of at least 50 per cent of the number of voters, but not less than the number of votes picked up by the candidate,” the speaker said.     

The uninominal voting system is a type of elections set in the legislation of electoral systems practiced in the USA and the United Kingdom. It represents direct election of individual candidates, opposite to the election system on lists drawn up by the parties in the political life of a state.

(Reporter A. Plitoc, editor A. Raileanu)