Description
The problem we tackle is twofold. On the one hand, the regulation of political parties discourages the appearance of new competitors. On the other hand, NGOs have not traditionally been focused on political competition between parties. Our project aims to build a coalition specifically focused on fostering the competition within the political establishment. We will create reform options regarding new parties and independent candidates that are acceptable for the citizens, while being (as much as possible) also acceptable for the political establishment. During the period relevant for this grant, we will build on these proposal we will support and promote it through meeting citizens, politicians and other stakeholders. After this period, the partners will be able to undertake advocacy actions and monitor parliamentary activity with reasonable financial costs.
Summary of project results
The set of electoral laws in Romania needed a change, since they were extremely restrictive. In order to create a party, 25,000 signatures were needed. A minimum of signatures from roughly half of the Romanian counties were also needed. Each electoral year, all parties had to raise again a number of signatures in order to participate in elections. A party also needed to provide a financial deposit for each circumscription it ran in; the money were returned if the party had a minimum of votes, but some parties lost them as they put candidates in circumscriptions they never had a chance to win, only to achieve the maximum number of votes nationwide. Last but not least, the electoral threshold was rather high (5%). In order to loosen these barriers, the organisations involved in the project put together resources with other NGOs in order to build the Politics without Barriers coalition. This coalition has provided law proposals by building arguments for each change and conducting impact studies, preceded by debates. Through the project, a significant part of the advocacy effort was funded. The informal coalition targeted at abolishing all the barriers to participating in elections. Thus, the promoter, together with its partners, proposed that a number of signatures equal to 0.5% of the electoral list should be required in order to run for office in any circumscription, whether it were a party list or an independent candidate. There should be only one barrier to enter Parliament. Other proposals were that only 3 members should be required to create a new party, and abolishing the electoral deposit. That last proposal was also the big win of the project. The Parliament has voted that a party could be created with only 3 members. This means that, in theory, local parties can freely emerge. In practice, some requirements are still pushing the party towards having structures at least at county-level. However, this change can be viewed as a big progress.
Summary of bilateral results