The Parliament adopted the Electoral Code of the Republic of Moldova. The document aims to improve electoral procedures, to remove ambiguities and contradictions between the Electoral Code and other laws, as well as to implement the recommendations formulated in the reports of national and international election monitoring missions. Debates on the project lasted several hours, and in the end it was voted by 55 deputies.
After the approval in the first reading, the document was subjected to several rounds of public consultations.
“There was an enormous amount of work done by the colleagues from the Central Electoral Commission, by the colleagues in the Parliament and by all those who worked for the last five months on the improvement of this draft electoral code”, said the president of the Legal, Appointments and Immunities Commission , Olesia Stamate.
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Thus, in exceptional situations, such as pandemic, state of emergency, in some constituencies, the elections will be held over two days (Saturday and Sunday), by way of derogation from the general rule. This is to be determined by the decision of the Central Electoral Commission, at least 25 days before the election day. At the same time, in order to facilitate voters’ access to the electoral process, citizens will be given the right to vote both on the basis of the ballot or the provisional identity ballot, as well as on the basis of the passport, regardless of the type of ballot.
The document also establishes clear principles regarding the coverage of the elections by the mass media. Mass media institutions will have the obligation to respect the principles of equity, balance and impartiality in the context of the media coverage of electoral campaigns. Otherwise, they risk being sanctioned gradually by the Audiovisual Council.