The party is part of the electoral Patriotic Bloc of Socialists, Communists, Heart and Future of Moldova.
The decision was taken pursuant to the September 25 ruling of the Chisinau Court of Appeal, which satisfied the claim of the Ministry of Justice and restricted the party’s activity for a year to conduct its financial audit. It should be noted that there is no final court decision, as such, in this sense.
Thus, the party led by the ex-bashkan of Gagauzia, Irina Vlah, is officially deprived of the right to participate in the electoral campaign, both individually and as a bloc. According to the law, during the period of restriction, the party also cannot campaign, organize public events, speak in the media and use financial resources, with rare technical exceptions.
The party members are excluded from the list of candidates of the competitor – the electoral Patriotic Bloc of Socialists, Communists, Heart and Future of Moldova, although they are not personally affected by the legal battle – there are no claims against them. Moreover, the party’s lawyer pointed out that they were registered as candidates not from the party, but from the bloc. CEC chairperson Angelica Karaman said that keeping them on the list would be “absurd” if they were members of the respective party.
After the amendments to the list of candidates of the electoral Patriotic Bloc, it turned out that the gender quota in each ten was violated. Meanwhile, the deadline for candidates to request changes to the registered candidate lists expired on September 18. However, the CEC provided a 24-hour deadline to adapt the list.
Against this background, the electoral Patriotic Bloc of Socialists, Communists, Heart and Future of Moldova, which includes Irina Vlah’s party, held a protest outside the CEC building. There were slogans: “These measures and mechanisms have nothing in common with Europe and European values”, “A blow to Irina Vlah is a blow to the whole bloc”, “We will defend Irina – not today, but tomorrow!”.
Other participants in the election campaign have not yet commented on the CEC decision to suspend “Heart of Moldova”.
A day earlier, the CEC decided to relocate some polling stations for voters from localities on the left bank of the Nistru River. Thus, the polling stations from Varnita and Hadjimus were moved to the towns of Anenii Noi and Causeni, respectively, and the polling stations from Cocieri and Dorotcaia village were moved to Chisinau municipality. Also, “reserve locations for other polling stations in case of incidents or threats” were determined in advance, in the localities of Anenii Noi, Causeni, Floresti, Rezina and Stefan Voda districts. We would like to remind you that the number of polling stations for citizens living on the left bank of the Nistru River was reduced this year to 12 polling stations and the number of ballot papers was reduced to 23,500 ballot papers.
Due to the reduction in the number of polling stations, the electoral Patriotic Bloc directly accused Maia Sandu and the PAS party of “splitting the country and deliberately excluding Transnistria from the Republic of Moldova”. The Alternative bloc “strongly condemned such practices and demanded that the authorities stop violating citizens’ right to vote.” The PAS candidate Dan Perciun, on the contrary, warned in his publication against “mass transportation of citizens from the left bank of the Nistru River”.
At the same time, the Central Electoral Commission took care of the possibility of voting for compatriots abroad. On Friday morning, the MFAEI sent a request to reprint one thousand ballots for Canada and send them by diplomatic mail. The reason was the fear that the first batch may not arrive on time due to a strike by the Canadian postal services. Recall that the total number of polling stations abroad is 301, and ballots – 864 300.
The CEC also reminded that Friday, September 26 is the last day when campaign activities are allowed.
