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The decision of the CEC to invalidate the results of 10/51 and 35/65 polling stations has led to a serious legal and political impasse.
Article 48 of the Electoral Code gives the CEC exclusive authority to invalidate the results of the precinct only in cases where, as a result of the recorded violations, it becomes impossible to determine the true will of the voters.
In other words, the legislator did not give the CEC the right to depart from political expediency. The CEC had to prove one thing, that it was impossible to find out the will of the voters in the given precincts.
However, even if we accept that controversial claim, the logic of Article 95 of the same code also applies, according to which the result of each precinct has a direct impact on the final result of the national election and the distribution of mandates.
Therefore, the CEC, if it acted as a truly independent body, could not fail to realize that its decision is not just a matter of two precincts; another decision that affects the future composition of the National Assembly, a decision that affects the balance of political forces, because it depended on whether another opposition political force would appear in the parliament or not.
And this is where the main political question arises.
If the direct consequence of the application of Article 48 is a change in the political reality formed by Article 95, then it is obvious that the said Article 48 was used not to protect the will of the voter, but to transform the final political result formed by Article 95.
In other words, it is no longer about electoral rights.
We are talking about the mechanism of reproduction of political power.
If as a result of the decision of the CEC declared as an independent state body by the Constitution, only the current government gets political benefit, if as a result of that decision the opposition representation weakens, if as a result of it the political monopoly of the government is preserved, then the CEC strengthens the public mistrust of its own independence, creating new grounds for the belief that it has long ceased to be an independent body provided by the Constitution.
However, in the democratic system, the mission of the CEC is to calculate the will of the people. Not editing the will of the people. Not to adjust the political balance. Not to decide which political force should appear in the parliament and which should stay out of it.
If after the election, through administrative decisions, it becomes possible to change the political image that was formed at the ballot box, then this is not a summary of the election results, but a distortion.
If the CEC (together with its organizer) thought that with these decisions it was strengthening the positions of the government, then it is badly mistaken, because the exact opposite can happen. When state institutions cross the red lines and lose the last shreds of public trust, such political processes begin that unite the opposition field, even the forces that are very different from each other.
The consolidation around the defense of democracy and the voter’s will can become the most direct political consequence of these decisions.
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