Electoral Commission "supports the mixed vote"

Man or party? Electoral Commission maintains a variant with both, mixed vote respectively.

Permanent Electoral Authority and the Commission members are to come up with concrete proposals in this respect until Monday.

In principle, it talks about 50 percents of mandates assigned directly and the other half, by voting on the national party lists.

Until a concrete response, it exists, however, signals that mixed vote variant is supported by all political parties, including those of the opposition.

Mixed voting system is not approved by all parties, but there is the compromise variant on which the Electoral Code Commission reached by.

"We will have, in the end, 50 percent of MPs elected through majority ballot, and the other half of MPs to be elected on a list which shall be voted by citizens", says the Chairman of Commission, PDL deputy Sulfina Barbu.

"The opposition opposes this type of vote, whereas the system is complicated, because it does not provide a breakdown of seats in proportion to electorate votes ", supports the SDP leader, Deputy Mircea Duşa.

UDMR, which has always supported the lists vote, considers that a system based on the plurality vote benefits only the large parties that could take all the mandates - Deputy Árpád Márton explains.

"Someone takes 40 percent of the electorate votes and will have 100 percent in Parliament and the remaining 60 percent of population will not be represented in Parliament. It is, in fact, the dictatorship of a relative majority minority", Arpad Marton said.

The Electoral code Commission has not taken yet in the discussion the distribution of colleges.

It is also expected a point of view from the Permanent Electoral Authority who will respect the decisions of the Commission and ensure that they may be applied correctly from a technical standpoint and in compliance with the present legislation .

Vicepresident of the authority, Marian Muhuleţ, says that the current legislation is based on a mixed system of voting but one such lottery, due to proportionality among political parties, thing that is wanted to be corrected.

"The current system does not guarantee, due to proportionality among the political parties, does not guarantee to the candidates who get a large number of votes that will receive the mandate, unless they made 50 percent plus one.

So you can have 40,000 votes, let’s say, but it is not enough to pass the threshold of 50 perecent plus one and as a Deputy to choose a colleague of yours, who took in another college only 10,000 votes", said Marian Muhuleţ.

The Electoral Code Commission has extended until 15th May the time for debate on the new legislation.

Until then discussions will take place both with the Permanent Electoral Authority and with the Ministry of Administration and Interior, to agree on the final form of the draft law.


Translated by Anamaria Petrache
MTTLC, Bucharest University