During the Parliament’s last Spring-Summer meeting, Moldova’s deputies voted in the second reading of a draft law that allows for changes to the Electoral Code. On July 31, the deputies voted in favor of revoking the mixed electoral system, returning to pre-election silence, as well as changes to diaspora-related voting procedures.

Fifty-seven deputies voted in favor of the changes to the Electoral Code. Now the next parliamentary elections will be based on a proportional voting system and party lists. In addition, the members of parliament decided to prohibit electoral campaigning on election day and the annulment of integrity certificates.

Diaspora Citizens will be able to cast their vote using an expired passport

According to the new amendments to the Electoral Code Moldovan citizens residing abroad will have a two day voting period. The polling stations will be opened on Saturday and Sunday, according to the act establishing the election day. The approved amendments also allow for the opening of additional polling stations, with the agreement of the competent authorities of the respective countries.

These accommodations were created in response to a petition from diaspora representatives, which requested these amendments from the Central Electoral Commission.

During the same meeting on July 31, the MPs adopted new transparency procedures for financing political parties. Henceforth, donations from individuals to one or more political party in a financial year cannot exceed an amount equivalent to six average monthly salaries established for that year.

For Moldovan citizens with incomes from outside of the country, this amount cannot exceed an amount equivalent to three average monthly salaries established for that year. At the same time, employees of state institutions will not be allowed to finance parties or electoral campaigns with amounts that exceed ten percent of their income.

What’s more, companies that have or will have state contracts (for a period of up to three years) will no longer be able to finance political parties. Other amendments aim to reduce the maximum ceiling on the costs of electoral campaigns and the exclusion from the race of parties that do not respect the gender quota. MPs also reduced the threshold for parties and electoral blocks to five percent and seven percent, respectively.

All of these amendments will, however, have to be approved by the MPs in a final reading.

In the event of early elections – a new configuration will appear

During the Summer of 2017, 74 MPs from the Moldovan Parliament voted for changing the proportional electoral system to a mixed electoral system. The Venice Commission criticized the decision, declaring that this decision posed a number of risks.

“We are watching with concern the anti-democratic actions taken by the Moldovan authorities and the deterioration of the rule of law. Instead of increasing the standard of living for citizens, the Democratic Party (PDM), along with the Socialists (PSRM), chose to strengthen the autocracy, ” said then members of the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).

On February 24, 2019 the citizens of Moldova elected their Parliament on the basis of the mixed electoral system for the first time. The country’s political parties proposed 50 candidates and 51 came from electoral uninominal constituency.

On July 31, 2019 Intelligent Data SRL (iData) Company published a Survey on the results of possible early elections. According to the survey, if early elections were held based on the proportional system next Sunday, four parties would gain access to the Parliament: the Socialist Party (41.9 percent) the Action and Solidarity Party (29.3 percent) the Dignity and Truth Platform Party (8.2 percent) and the Democratic Party (8.1 percent).

Three other political parties received less than 3 percent of the vote each: the Communist Party (2.2 percent), the Shor Party (1.9 percent) and the Our Party (1 percent). Meanwhile 9.7 percent of respondents claimed they would not vote, 21 percent were undecided and 4.9 percent did not respond.

In the event of early elections the seats will be distributed as follows: the Socialist Party would get 48 seats, the Action and Solidarity Party – 34 seats, the Dignity and Truth Platform Party – ten seats, and the Democratic Party would obtain only nine seats.