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LOCAL ELECTIONS IN MOLDOVA SCHEDULED FOR OCTOBER 20

19 june, 2019

The next ordinary nation-wide local elections shall be held in Moldova on October 20, 2019, the Moldovan Parliament decided on Tuesday, having voted for this by a majority of votes.

Presenting a bill to this effect, Socialist MP Vasile Bolea said that according to the law, the mayors of populated areas and the members of municipal councils [aka the councilors] are elected for 4 years, but due to the specific situation developing in Moldova this year, their mandates have already expired de facto, but now they will be automatically remaining valid de-jure until the election of new mayors and councilors.

MP Lilian Carp of the PAS faction remarked that in Moldova, problems with the appointment of local election dates appear inevitably – always, so it would be expedient to fix in the legislation one concrete date to thus avoid such problems in the future, when the Parliament will be not able to appoint an election date due to a new political crisis or something else.

“Tomorrow, we will hold a public debate with the participation of the Congress of Local Authorities of Moldova (CALM) and the Promo-LEX Association to discuss necessary changes in the current legislation. This time, for the October elections, we will take a special decision, but in order to avoid problems in the future, I guess it would be highly desirable to amend the legislation appropriately”, said Lilian Carp.

Democratic MP Sergiu Sirbu voiced discontent that the parliamentary majority is dragging out the holding of local election, though the legislation permits to appoint an election date already after 60 days.

“We may well hold the local elections at the end of August or in early September. Mandates have already expired. Why are you leaving us to the mercy of acting mayors and municipal councilors for 4 more months?” demanded the Democrat.
E.g. Chisinau has been governed by an Acting Mayor for a year and a half already, after the previous Mayor, incumbent Liberal Party Chairman Dorin Chirtoaca was forced to resign due to the scandalous corruption litigation started against him. Then-ruling Democratic Party tried to take the country’s ‘last non-Democratic citadel’ – Chisinau city – under its control, but the gubernatorial election held in June 2018 was won by Andrei Nastase, a leader of the right-wing opposition. The Democrats could not indeed tolerate that mishap and annulled the election results on a funny pretext, despite the foreign partners’ vociferous objections.

That moment marked the onset of a mortal confrontation between the Democratic Party and the right-wing opposition, which ended only last week, when the pro-European ACUM bloc formed a parliamentary majority with the Party of Socialists, so the ruling Democratic Party had to go over to the opposition.

The 2018 election winner Andrei Nastase has become Minister of the Interior, and Socialist Ion Ceban, the gubernatorial elections’ second finalist, is now a Deputy Speaker of the Parliament. Like before, these two gentlemen are believed to be the main aspirants for the Chisinau mayoral post, but none of them has confirmed such an intention yet. It well may be that one of them will refuse to take part in the polls to not cause differences between coalition parties.

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