I haven't done anything ilegal, says former head of Electoral Authority Mituletu-Buica

The President of the Permanent Electoral Authority, Constantin-Florin Mituletu-Buica, on Thursday stated that he was charged with two offences of abuse of office, on the grounds that in 2019 he applied two disciplinary sanctions to two directors of the institution, although he believes he did not do anything illegal.

Mituletu-Buica specified that he was summoned to the Prosecutor's Office attached to the District 3 Court to be informed of the accusations.

"I was charged with two counts of abuse of office for two disciplinary sanctions related to a 2019 warning for two directors. At that time I was under pressure from the committee of inquiry to make documents available to them [the two directors - editor's note]. They did not comply with the President's request, and at the next time they considered resigning, and when they found that they had to stay in the institution for another 30 days, they requested the consent of the parties and left amicably. The two directors filed a criminal complaint with the Prosecutor's Office because I gave them the warning illegally, but I do not blame myself, the activity of the authority, after they left, proved to be very good: three elections without events - last year's presidential and local and parliamentary elections, which is why I have nothing to blame on myself or my my colleagues who continue to work," he told AGERPRES.

He added that he was summoned to the Prosecutor's Office attached to the District 3 Court to be informed that he is going to be prosecuted for two offences of abuse of office related to the two disciplinary sanctions.

"I do not consider that I did anything illegal, because the activity was discontinuous and things are clear. (...) Why should I resign? For some disciplinary sanctions? No head of institution will be able to do his/her job from now on if he faces such accusations. When I ask for documents, he goes on leave without announcing me as head of the institution, while we were also under pressure to close the elections and the referendum and from the committee of inquiry, and he left without announcing, and I found myself in the situation where there was no one to sign the documents for the committee of inquiry. He left without leaving somebody to take care of the activity at the Central Electoral Office, while he was the coordinator of the electoral processes," said the AEP head.

According to him, the targeted persons were Gabriel Sauca, who was the coordinator of the activity of centralizing the election results, and Cristian Petraru, the coordinator of the electoral processes.

"If two basic people, senior civil servants in authority, leave and leave no one in their place to do the job, then I applied the disciplinary sanction and then they resigned. I consider that I have not done anything illegal in the two years since I have led the institution and it is clear that things are good," said the AEP chief.