Moldovans in Ireland ‘excluded’ from presidential poll as not enough ballots for turnout

By Domnica Lazar

Moldovan voters in Ireland have complained of exclusion from their country’s recent presidential election after the local consulate ran short of ballot papers.
All 3,000 ballots available at Dublin’s Gresham Hotel on 13 November for the second round of the Moldovan presidential poll were cast by 6pm – leaving more than 1,500 Moldovans queueing outside in what was described as an unexpectedly high turnout.
Since then, some 800 Moldovan citizens living in Ireland have made petitions to the Central Election Commission in the Moldovan capital Chisinau, claiming a violation of their constitutional right “to vote and be voted for”.
“I come with my family from Waterford and queued for five hours,” one prospective voter, who does not want to be named, told Metro Éireann on the evening. “Now we were told that we can’t vote, there are no more ballot papers. I want to vote, my vote will mean a lot. I want our country to prosper.”
Lord Victor Haruta, Moldovan Consul in London and chair of the Dublin electoral commission in Dublin, said he would write to Chisinau and “do everything possible so that for the next elections [we would] open one more polling station in Ireland. It could be in Dublin or in another city.”
In the meantime, Ion Spac, one of the members of Dublin commission, has appealed for calm. 
“It is the first time that the Moldovan diaspora in Ireland is so strongly mobilised,” he said. “At the first round two weeks [before] we even sent back 1,000 unused ballot papers.”
Spac added that this election was of greater importance than usual as it would indicate “which orientation will Moldova take: east with Russia or west with the EU”.
Igor Dodon of the Socialist Party won the election on 13 November, though the vast majority of votes cast in Dublin - 2,902 to 91 – were for his opponent Maia Sandu of the pro-European Solidarity Action Party (PAS).
The Dublin polling station is one of more than 100 that Moldova’s electoral commission had opened internationally to accommodate citizens living and working overseas. 
Voting this year was also in two rounds, after the first ballot on 30 October saw none of the nine presidential candidates reach quota.