Elections in Moldova: It's a serious issue to invalidate a mandate earned by popular vote, Melescanu says
Minister of Foreign Affairs Teodor Melescanu on Wednesday stated that the invalidation of the mandate earned by Andrei Nastase in the Republic of Moldova elections is a serious issue.
"Unfortunately, this is a very serious issue, in my opinion, to invalidate a mandate earned by popular vote. I don't know all the details related to the legal provisions in the Republic of Moldova, but I sincerely believe that when a person was validated by a very clear popular vote, this kind of things do nothing else but create the possibility of worsening relations between the authorities in the Republic of Moldova and the political parties, and there is a chance this would also have a negative impact on the stability in the Republic of Moldova," said Melescanu, at the Palace of Parliament.
However, in answering a question, he opined the decision was not likely to drive Moldova away from its European track, yet. "All confirmations that we have at governmental and parliamentary level show that the objective is for the country to look forward towards its integration with the European Union," said the Minister.
He specified the only thing Romania can do in this case was to state opinions. "All we can do is to adopt a standpoint, to express our opinions, (...) otherwise it is not normal that a state gets involved in the internal affairs of another state," said Melescanu.
The court confirmed on Tuesday evening that the early local elections in Chisinau for the general mayor, which took place in two rounds, on May 20 and June 3, were according to law, meaning that Andrei Nastase's mandate, as the winner of the polls, was not validated, read the newspapers in Chisinau.
Andrei Nastase, as quoted by deschide.md, stated that the Tuesday evening decision was "arbitrary" and he was prepared to challenge it with the Court of Appeal, within the legal time span of 24 hours.
In the second round of the snap polls for the general mayor of Chisinau, which took place on June 3, pro-European Andrei Nastase obtained 52.57 per cent of the votes, outrunning thus his socialist opponent Ion Ceban, who received 47.43 per cent of the votes.