Moldovan parliament harshens sanctions for corrupting voters

Chisinau, 31 July /MOLDPRES/ - The voters receiving, accepting or claiming services, privileges or advantages in any form for themselves or other person, on the purpose of the exercising or non-exercising of the right to vote at elections, including regional ones, will run the risk of being fined, if the deed does not represent offence. At the same time, the concerned person can be released from contravention responsibility, if the person denounced him/herself and actively contributed to the discovering or counteraction of the electoral corruption deed.      

Sixty eight MPs voted a draft law which stipulates this in the second reading today. The legislative initiative belongs to a group of lawmakers of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS). The authors propose to complete the Contravention Code, in order to sanction the passive corruption on the period of the electoral campaign, on the day before the ballot or on the day of the polls and the value of the fines will be from 25,000 lei to 37,500 lei.  

The informative note reads that decision-makers did not include in the category of the assets concerned by the sanction the materials and objects of electoral agitation paid from the electoral fund, which bear the given name and family name of the candidate, respectively the name of the political party, signs or symbols of the electoral contenders, such as posters, folders, post cards, calendars, note-books, illustrations, pens, cigarette lighters, matches boxes, badges, CDs, DVDs, USB stocking devices, flags, books,  bags, T-shirts, caps, scarfs, mufflers, the value of which for one unit does not exceed 100 lei.         

„The electoral corruption represents a dangerous threat to the correctness and integrity of the electoral process, which affects the rule of law state and enhances the distrust in the state’s entities. The precedents existing during years at elections proved the fact that the actions of corrupting voters are frequent during electoral campaigns. Although there are legal mechanisms which contribute to the combating of corruption, this phenomenon is to be approached constantly, in order to improve the legal framework which would allow the aligning to the best standards in the public integrity field. The analysis of the statistics reported by the competent law-enforcement bodies, as well as the judicial practice showed the fact that, besides the sanctioning under the Criminal Law, the contravention sanctioning is necessary too, which will contribute to the optimization of the mechanism of investigation and documentation of the electoral corruption cases,’’ the draft law reads.        

The legislative measures will enter into force on the date of their publication in the Official Journal (Monitorul Oficial).