The Edinet town council decided to withdraw the seats of 11 Communist councilors who didn’t come to three and more meetings. Deputy mayor of Edinet Valerian Ciobanu has told IPN that such a measure was necessary as the council could not hold 19 meetings because the Communists, who are 12 in number, and two Liberal-Democrats didn’t present themselves.

Valerian Ciobanu said that the 12th Communist councilor vacated the seat on his own initiative. The situation of the two Liberal-Democrats will be discussed in the next meeting. However, another problem appeared after the Communist councilors were deprived of seats. The Communist leaders in districts ban the substitute candidates from accepting the vacated seats. 

According to the deputy mayor of Edinet, the council hasn’t been yet dissolved because several meetings have been held since December. The legislation says that the council can be dissolved if no meeting is held for six consecutive months. Thus, two meetings took place last December, when the town was in a state of emergency. All the roads were blocked and the central water pipeline was frozen. The council convened a meeting with only 13 councilors of the 27 so as to amend the budget and allow carrying out the necessary works. A meeting with 15 councilors was held in March. The two Liberal-Democrats came to the meeting and even voted several decisions.

Contacted by IPN, the secretary of the Central Election Commission Andrei Volentir said that no cases of withdrawing such a large number of seats were reported until now. There was also no case of refusing to accept the seats en masse. The regulations do not stipulate what steps should be taken in such cases and the Commission will probably review them so as not to prevent cases of blockage.

Andrei Volentir also said that two of the 12 substitute candidates of the Communist Party signed a consent statement and the town council will be able to work with 10 councilors absent, if the quorum is present at the meetings.