Moldovan constitutional referendum, 2010

The Moldovan referendum of 2010 was a nationwide referendum in Moldova held on 5 September on whether or not the country should amend the Constitution of Moldova to return to direct popular election of the president instead of 3/5 of total number of seats parliament vote as it is now. and resulted in failure due to an insufficient turnout: 30.29% as opposed to the necessary 33% for the referendum to be considered valid.

The voters are asked to answer the following question "Would you agree with the Constitutional amendment, which would allow the election of the President of the Republic of Moldova by the entire population?", voting for one of the proposed options: “Yes (for)” or “No (against)”. Of those who had cast their vote, 87.83% chose "Yes".

As the constitution cannot be changed by parliamentary vote against the will of the opposition Communist Party (PCRM), which holds enough seats to block any constitutional changes by parliamentary vote, the ruling coalition decided to bypass it by holding a referendum on the question.

The new Constitution was initially adopted by the Parliament by 50+1 votes. A national referendum was then approved by a simple majority in parliament for the people to express their opinion on the new Constitution.

The proposal also changed the name of the state language from "Moldovan" to "Romanian." According to Ghimpu, the Romanian language must be the official language of Moldova.

The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe reacted initially favorably to a proposed constitutional reform, in particular to revise the existing procedure of electing president of the republic. However, after a plenary meeting in March 2010, the Commission suggested to hold early parliamentary elections instead of conducting a constitutional referendum. The Commission also stressed that the current parliament should be dissolved after adopting the proposal for constitutional reform and that this proposal should take effect for the next parliament.

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Wikipedia