PDF (Testo Online) - EURAC

Wöber – The Autonomy of Gagauzia
3.1.5. Selected Functions
3.1.5.1. Political Representation at the State Level
Representation of Gagauzia in the centre is currently ensured through three
main provisions:
(1) the electoral process;
(2) the arrangements under the 1994 Law provide that all members of the
Gagauz executive committee are members of government ministries in
the centre, including an ex officio position for the Bashkan;
(3) Gagauzia has the right to legislative initiative in the Republic of
Moldova’s national parliament. Wolff calls this feature unique as it has
the potential to provide “an effective mechanism to introduce
legislation in the national parliament in areas that remain in the
competence of the central government but that have a particular
impact on Gagauzia”. 195
(1) A change in laws had a decisive influence on Gagauzia. From 1991, the
Law on Political Parties and Social-Political Organizations went through
various amendments before becoming an organic law in 2007. Since 1998,
following another provision, it has become relatively complicated to found a
party as a number of prerequisites have to be fulfilled, which is especially an
obstacle to small ethnic groups. 196 The law requires that a party can only be
registered if it has at least 5,000 members who reside in at least half of the
intermediate-level administrative-territorial units, with at least 150 members
in each of them. In fact, the law only led to the non-functioning of ethnic
Gagauz parties in Gagauz Yeri. 197 Since then the local elites have demanded
the opportunity to create political parties in the autonomy. 198
In their March 2010 study on party competition and legislative recruitment
in Moldova, the results found by Oleh Protsyk and Ion Osonian depict the
following situation for the Gagauz: in general, Moldova is characterized by
multi-ethnic political organizations and, as statistics show, parties on the left
spectrum especially are known for their diverse ethnic membership. Because
of the Transnistria problem, proportional representation was chosen as the
electoral formula. 199 By combining data on the ethnic distribution of the
population with data on the ethnic composition of the Moldovan parliament,
Protsyk and Osonian come to the conclusion that Gagauz are ‘perfectly’
represented from a statistical view, and at times had even been
195 Stefan Wolff, “Representation of Autonomous Entities at the Level of the Central Government:
Options and Recommendations for Gagauzia”, December 2007, at
http://www.stefanwolff.com/publications/representation-of-autonomous-entities-at-the-level-ofthe-central-government.
He advised in his study for the EU, with respect to the general framework
found in Moldova, to keep these mechanisms and use them properly.
196 Munteanu, Political Parties Legislation in Moldova ..., 66.
197 Osonian and Protsyk, Ethnic or Multi-Ethnic Parties? …, 7.
198 Bowers, The Moldovan Confederation …, 71–73.
199 Osonian and Protsyk, Ethnic or Multi-Ethnic Parties? …, 6.
www.eurac.edu/edap 30 edap@eurac.edu