The electoral platforms of candidates for mayor general of the municipality of Chisinau are ignorant of disability. Only two electoral platforms reflect an intermediary decree of inclusion of persons with disabilities, shows a preliminary November 5 general local elections monitoring report by the INFONET Alliance.

In a news conference hosted by IPN, expert Andrei Brighidin said that six candidates included in an incipient manner the preoccupations of persons with disabilities in their electoral programs, mentioning only the social protection and infrastructural barriers faced by this group of persons. Two platforms reflect insufficient understanding of the disability concept. The electoral programs of 11 of the 28 candidates for mayor general of the municipality of Chisinau are not available online. This fuels the presumption that this group of voters – persons with disabilities – was ignored by the given election contenders.

Of the 17 platforms available online, a large part ignore the persons with disabilities. Seven candidates in their electoral platforms use such general expressions as “all the people”, “modern, efficient, sustainable public transport”, “modern infrastructure and services” without explaining them. Such approaches neglect the specific barriers faced by persons with disabilities in different spheres of life.

Of the ten candidates who treated the disability in their electoral platforms, some use mistaken terms with regard to persons with disabilities. This way, two programs mention the commitments towards “persons with limited disabilities” or “persons with special needs”. This perception hampers understanding of the fact that the persons with disabilities are equal in dignity, rights and opportunities, the public authorities being obliged to eliminate the attitude and environmental barriers that do not allow these persons to fully and effectively participate in society in equal conditions, as all the others.

Another six candidates included in an incipient manner the concerns of persons with disabilities in their electoral programs. This way, these contenders admit that the city is for now not sufficiently friendly towards persons with disabilities. These candidates include primary commitments to create spaces without barriers, to attenuate the difficulties faced by persons with severe disabilities, to outfit the public transport with access slopes, to use the universal design principle in the case of public transport stations.

According to Andrei Brighidin, only two electoral platforms reflect intermediary understanding of disability. They more profoundly addressed the desideratum to realize the rights of persons with disabilities in conditions of equality with the others. Besides primary commitments regarding the social protection and accessibility of infrastructure, these programs contain measures to facilitate the participation of persons with disabilities in local decision making, to advance the access to education, healthcare services and the economic empowerment efforts. However, these platforms are not sufficiently sensitive to the diversity of persons with disabilities and respectively didn’t stipulate complex empowerment measures.

A similar situation is witnessed in TV debates programs. Nine electoral debates programs produced by TV Moldova 1, Jurnal TV, TV8 and PRO TV were randomly analyzed. In the debates, the election contenders didn’t refer to the rights of persons with disabilities or accessibility. Andrei Brighidin said the disability in electoral debates should be addressed more profoundly by more actively engaging persons with disabilities as party members and as election contestants.

INFONET Alliance executive director Victor Koroli noted that according to the National House of Social Insurance, the number of persons recognized as persons with disabilities is of 168,000 and 10,600 of these are children aged between 0 and 17. The persons with disabilities represent 6.5% of the country’s total population with ordinary residence.

Note: IPN News Agency offers the right of reply to persons who consider they were touched by the news items produced based on statements made by the organizers of the given news conference, including by facilitating the organization of another news conference in similar conditions.