Moldovan civil servants getting involved in electoral campaign during worktime run risk of being dismissed

Chisinau, 7 October /MOLDPRES/ - The government will not tolerate the involvement of civil servants and state’s employees in the electoral campaign during work-time and will not allow the use of administrative resources in the campaign. Any deviation from these principles will be investigated and sanctioned under the law. Government’s Secretary General Andrei Spinu made statements to this effect today.    

„We are in the full swing of the electoral campaign and everybody’s task is to make sure that these polls are free and fair. From the government’s viewpoint, this means that the state’s institutions will not get involved in the influencing of the electoral process in any way,’’ Spinu said.  

According to the government’s secretary general, the civil servants getting involved in the electoral campaign run the risk of being sanctioned according to the law, including with dismissal from office.

Andrei Spinu also said that the authorities had been recently notified about a case in which ‘’a state agency from Orhei would use the database of beneficiaries’ contacts, in order to call and urge them to vote for a certain electoral contender.’’ In another case, decision-makers received information, according to which the Posta Moldovei (Moldova’s Post) enterprise ‘’would distribute, along with subscribers’ magazines, electoral materials too.’’   

Under a decision by the prime minister, an inter-institutional working group has been recently set up for coordinating the monitoring of the central public administration, aimed at ensuring proper conditions for a good carrying out of the elections. The working group had more discussions with the State Fiscal Service, Public Procurements Agency and National Social Insurances House, which will provide every support to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) to identify suspicious donations in the electoral campaign.   

„We submitted petitions to the Service for the Prevention and Combating of Money Laundering, Interior Ministry, Customs Service and Intelligence and Security Service, in order to verify the dubious transactions coming from abroad in the electoral campaign and not allow this money be used for financing parties,’’ Spinu said.   

The official demanded that the social assistance sector employees distribute the social aid in strict accordance with the law and not allow the involvement of electoral interests in this process. 

The general local elections will take place on 20 October 2019. Concomitantly, new parliamentary polls will be held in four electoral districts.