[JURIST] The Moldovan Constitutional Court [official website, in Romanian] on Thursday threw out the results [press release, in Romanian] of the recent presidential election and canceled the run off vote planned for January 15. The court ruled that many parliamentary deputies violated the secrecy of the voting procedure [RIA Novosti report] by showing their ballots to TV cameras to show their support of parliamentary speaker and acting president Marian Lupu. Lupu fell three votes shy of the 61 votes required for election, out of 101 deputies. Moldova has been without an official president since 2009.

Moldova’s main political parties, the pro-EU party and the Communist Party, have been deadlocked since Moldova’s last president, Vladimir Voronin, resigned [RFE/RL report] in September 2009. Lupu has unsuccessfully run for president three times [RFE/FL report]. Voronin, leader of the opposition Communist Party, stated that he refuses to support Lupu but indicated that Moldova could end the deadlock by voting for a non-parliamentary, non-partisan candidate. In April 2009 the Moldovan Constitutional Court confirmed controversial election results [JURIST report] which gave the Communist Party 60 of the 101 parliament seats, after it had ordered a recount [JURIST report] after accusations of falsified voter registration rolls.