BALTI MUNICIPAL COUNCIL ACCEPTS MAYOR USATII’S RESIGNATION

By a majority of ballots, the Balti Municipal Council today accepted the resignation tendered by Mayor Renato Usatii, who is also the Chairman of the Partidul Nostru [Our Party, OP]. He has been hiding in Moscow since August 2016 from what he calls “the Plahotniuc justice in Moldova”.

Municipal Councilor Sergiu Balan of the forum’s largest OP faction confirmed that the Council Secretariat has received from Renato Usatii an official application for a volunteer retirement.

OP Deputy Chairperson Elena Gritco said that from the formal point of view, Renato Usatii has not been Balti Mayor since February 13 – the date when his resignation paper arrived and was filed officially in the Council.

“Now the application has been officially approved by the city legislature, and we will now send the Council’s acceptance decision over to the Central Election Commission in Chisinau. The Commission must make its official answer and then launch the procedure of electing a new Balti Mayor. According to our preliminary estimates, the voting may take place on May 20, when snap elections will be held in several more localities having no mayors at the moment”, said Gritco.

The meeting of the 35-member Municipal Council has been recognized as valid, as it was attended by 26 members of the OP faction and 5 councilors from other parties.

As was already reported by Infotag, in June 2015 Renato Usatii won elections in the country’s second-largest city, having polled over 72% in a first round of voting. However, at the end of 2017 the incumbent Moldovan authorities launched an investigation so that to fire him from the essential post for absenteeism. In response, the OP-dominated Municipal Council decided to hold a city referendum on a vote of confidence in the Mayor. However, the central Moldovan authorities have done all in their powers to prevent such a plebiscite.

This week, Renato Usatii unexpectedly announced his volunteer retirement from the post. Presently, the mayoral duties are performed by OP councilor Nicolai Grigorishin. Usatii stated that Grigorishin will most probably be nominated as Our Party’s candidate for the mayoral post.