Elections are a formal process whereby persons are selected for public office. In this way, elections serve as a tool for exercising democracy through representatives, as opposed to direct democracy where groups of citizens make political decisions themselves. They also enable voters to hold selected representatives accountable for their performance in public office.
Free and fair elections are a key to democracy. For elections to be considered free, they need to meet a set of criteria. The right to free elections is limited in scope and does not extend to, for example, referendums.
In Moldova, three kinds of elections take place regularly. These are the parliamentary elections, presidential elections and local (municipal) elections.
Parliamentary, presidential and local elections
The manner and order in which parliamentary, presidential and local elections are conducted is prescribed by the Constitution and the Electoral Code. All kinds of elections take place once every four years.
Enabling the right to vote
The law protects the right of citizens to exercise their right to vote. This includes persons with disabilities or ill persons, persons who are detained or imprisoned, linguistic minorities and citizens who are abroad. The procedure for voting at home, at a hospital, in a place of detention or imprisonment, as well as abroad, is specified by the law.
important The Electoral Code provides that in Moldova ballot papers are written in Romanian. However, in order to facilitate the participation of ethnic minorities in elections, ballot papers are prepared in other languages at the request of the electoral authorities of the respective constituency. In practice, ballot papers are also available in Russian and, in some localities, in Ukrainian, Gagauz and Bulgarian.
important Persons with disabilities, the elderly and others who need help can benefit from “assisted voting” during elections. In this respect the Electoral Code provides that voters who are unable to fill in the ballot paper themselves may be assisted by another person. This person may be a personal assistant, relative, acquaintance or any other person, with the exception of members and staff of the polling station, representatives of electoral candidates or referendum participants and persons authorised to be present during the electoral process (for example, observers).
What human rights violation may there be?
If you are either directly or indirectly being prevented from voting, including if your need to vote at home, at a hospital, or a place of imprisonment is not ensured in accordance with the law, or if the elections themselves are not fair, your right to vote and more generally your right to free elections may have been violated.