alegeri.md

The Central Electoral Commission says that a sitting to hand in the credentials to members of the 17th legislature of Moldova will take place at the Government Building on Saturday, April 25, 2009 at 10:00. (Source: CEC communication)

“The opposition has failed to collect in time the evidence on rigging the April 5 parliamentary election results”, Constitutional Court Chairman Dumitru Pulbere stated to the press on Wednesday night after the Court had officially validated the election results. Pulbere explained the Constitutional Court had scrutinized in all aspects the electoral documents and materials submitted to it, including by opposition parties. Nevertheless, “the materials, which the opposition had collected to prove the election falsification, failed to be presented in due time. The opposition was supposed to send its protests to the Central Electoral Commission, district election councils and to pass all law-stipulated stages of judiciary instance. If the opposition had submitted all such documents, the Constitutional Court would certainly give its assessment of them. But such proofs failed to be presented, whereas the protests the opposition has sent to the Court were insufficient. In such situation, the Constitutional Court decided to recognize the 2009 parliamentary election results as valid”, said Pulbere. According to him, there are certain law-stipulated restrictions on validation of election results, “so one should not convert the electoral process into chaos”. Pulbere stressed that “the Election Code strictly regulates all stages of electoral process, who and what has to be done on a certain stage”. Asked what he believes is more important — a procedure or a viable, efficient parliament, Dumitru Pulbere replied, “Above all is law!” Pulbere evaded answering if some Court Judges had offered their separate or special opinion on the issue. He only said there is a law-stipulated secrecy of discussion, and he may not betray it. (Source: Infotag)

After the Constitutional Court (CC) has validated the April 5 parliamentary election results and the 101 parliamentary mandates, the opposition parties wager on the early elections, as these are seen as their only chance to win the 61st parliamentary mandate. Upon hearing the Constitutional Court decision on Wednesday evening, Liberal Party Chairman Mihai Ghimpu stated to journalists that the PL’s position remained unchanged “We shall not vote with the Communists. The opposition has a golden vote, which is stronger and more precious than all the 60 Communist mandates put together”. The AMN representative to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), Nicolae Railean said the CC must have taken into consideration the submitted proofs of election rigging. “In the present-day situation, the last opportunity is to block the presidential election. This is an ideal option to achieve an early parliamentary election”, Railean said. The PLDM representative, Stefan Creanga stated that by its decision to validate election, the CC has ended the election rigging process started four years ago and that has successfully lasted until today. “We will continue our struggle and will prove the April 5 elections rigging. PLDM will not vote with PCRM the new Moldovan president and wager on early elections”, Creanga said. On the other hand, the PCRM representative to CEC, Serghei Sirbu named the Constitutional Court’s decision on approving the election results as “a fair, lawful and grounded one”. In his opinion, it is too early to speak of new parliamentary election. (Source: Infotag)

The Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM) says that the decision under which the Constitutional Court (CC) validated the April 5, 2009 parliamentary elections on Wednesday, April 22 was formal and illegal. PLDM first deputy chairman Alexandru Tanase told a press conference on Thursday, April 23 that “an illegality was committed yesterday,” as the CC has ignored three applications by three political parties which signalled many electoral violations being able to throw doubts on election results. The same day, the PLDM contested the decisions by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) in the Chisinau Court of Appeal. “The CC did not decide on any case and just formally validated the election results. We consider that what happened yesterday was an illegality. The CC should stop examining the election results as long as the Chisinau Court of Appeal in its quality of competent judicial authority did not decide on the PLDM application,” Tanase explained. (Source: Info-Prim)

“On the eve of the launch of the Eastern Partnership we need to demonstrate that the European Union is indeed ready to assist Moldova in overcoming the current difficulties. It is critical that we stay engaged with the Republic of Moldova,” European commissioner Olli Rehn told the European Parliament on Thursday. “We are seeking ways to promote dialogue and reconciliation between political forces in the country. The elections had taken place in a pluralistic environment and a number of international standards for democratic elections had been met,” Olli Rehn noted. “We must take into account the unfinished nature of Moldova’s democracy. We expect all concerned parties in Moldova, the official authorities as well as the political opposition and civil society, to agree on and progress towards a solution to the current crisis that will bring about more, not less, democracy and freedom for the Moldovan people,” Rehn emphasised. (Source: Omega)

The European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner told a briefing on Thursday that the European Union cannot ignore the postelection situation in Moldova. “We saw violence and firmly condemn the violence that erupted in the streets of Chisinau on April 7. We saw some violent students who overcame the limits and the excessive force used by law enforcement bodies,” Ferrero-Waldner stated. According to the European commissioner, the European authorities are concerned about relations with the Commission with regard to human rights violation including kidnapping, and grants “a special importance” to these problems. “We think that the violence is not an appropriate tool. It is not good for the opposition to commit violence, and we condemn this fact. But we also condemn the police reaction and all further actions/protests/” the European commissioner stressed. She underlined that the EU will “carefully consider the OSCE report, which says that no major breaches were observed during the parliamentary elections in Moldova.” “However, there were some violations. That’s why we are ready to establish a special commission to go to Moldova in order to study the situation,” Ferrero-Waldner added. (Source: jurnal.md)

EU ambassadors who meet on Thursday could consider the deployment of legal experts to investigate the alleged violations of human rights in the Republic of Moldova, European Voice has reported. The European Parliament decided on Wednesday to deploy a delegation of European parliamentarians to Moldova on a three-day mission to collect information there. EU foreign ministers will discuss the recent developments in Moldova at an April 27-scheduled meeting in Luxembourg. (Source: jurnal.md)

The High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, Secretary-General of the European Union Council, will visit Chisinau on Friday. This announcement was made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of the Republic of Moldova. According to knowledgeable sources quoted by the news website www.stireazilei.md, Solana conditioned his visit to Moldova, saying that he would like to discuss with the leaders of the three opposition parties which acceded to the Parliament, Vlad Filat, Mihai Ghimpu and Serafim Urechean, before meeting the outgoing President Vladimir Voronin. The meeting between the politicians and Solana is set for Friday afternoon. Central state institutions did not release any information regarding Solana’s visit to Chisinau. (Source: stireazilei.md)

The Prosecutor-General’s Office reports that it has got 24 complaints from “people who claim that they have been ill-treated by policemen.” It says that the complaints are being considered. At the same time, in another 30 cases of this kind prosecutors have received appeals from lawyers and parents or reacted to press reports. However, prosecutors decided so far to open criminal charges just on the basis of one complaint submitted by Damian Hancu, a young man tortured by policemen. (Source: stireazilei.md)

The Civic Coalition 2009 for Free and Fair Elections “Coalition 2009” demands the Ministry of Justice to apologise publicly for having deteriorated its image and to rectify the accusations that the “Coalition 2009” would have been organiser or co-organiser of the April 7 and 8, 2009 protests in Chisinau. The “Coalition 2009” does not have anything in common with the so-called Civic Coalition Elections-2009, which has submitted beforehand a declaration to the Chisinau City Hall, notifying the organisation of the April 7, 2009 meeting, while the persons indicated in that statement are not members and do not represent the “Coalition 2009”. We assure one more time that the “Coalition 2009” did not have plans to organise public meetings or protests in that period, reads the statement by the “Coalition 2009”. (Source: Info-Prim)

The Central Electoral Commission reports that 3,688,000 lei was spent to recount the votes in the Moldovan parliamentary elections. Any other amounts reported by certain political parties are exaggerated. The CEC is deeply concerned about these attempts to misinform the public opinion. To recall that the vote recount was ordered by the Constitutional Court at the request of some electoral contestants. (Source: CEC communication)

The head of the Moldovan Mission to the Council of Europe, Eugenia Chistruga, surprised the members of the European Parliament (EP) and European Commission on Wednesday, April 22, as she left the meeting organised by the EP Commission for Foreign Policy without saying anything after reading the formal position of the Chisinau Government with regard to the postelection developments. Together with Chisinau Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca, a leader of the Moldovan opposition, Chistruga was invited to discuss issues related to the parliamentary elections and postelection developments with EP members and human rights organisations including Amnesty International. Once she read her speech, Chistruga waited some seconds to hear several questions by Romanian EP members who demanded information regarding actions taken by the Chisinau Government to repress the protesters. When she was invited to answer, Chistruga said that she does not participate in the talks, waited some minutes and quitted the sitting hall without saying goodbye. (Sources: europalibera.org)