The head of Ungheni district Iurie Toma, who is running independently for the post of mayor of Ungheni town, said he is the victim of political harassment on the part of the Liberal Democratic Party (PLDM), from which he withdrew. In a news conference at IPN, Iurie Toma said that before taking the subscription lists from the Ungheni District Electoral Council, he heard rumors that he will not be registered as a candidate and convinced himself of this after he collected the number of signatures needed to run independently. He wasn’t registered for the reason that over half of the signatures would have been false.

Iurie Toma said that he needed 1,475 signatures to run for the mayoralty of Ungheni. The 40 members of the initiative group that encouraged him to run independently collected 2,200 signatures during five days. Even so, he wasn’t registered as a contender. The electoral body argued that only 900 of those 2,200 signatures were genuine.

“This is political harassment on the part of the PLDM. There is a person who six years ago shouted before the people that the truth is more powerful than the lie. I want to say now that the truth is indeed more powerful, but not with such leaders,” stated Iurie Toma. He added that he decided to withdraw from the PLDM after he realized that this party is controlled by one person. He also became inconvenient after he urged the leader of the PLDM Vlad Filat to concede the post of leader to Iurie Leanca.

Violeta Petre, the representative of the initiative group that collected signatures for fielding Iurie Toma for the posts of mayor and councilor, said she is ready to answer for each signature. “This is a political order because over 1,000 signatures cannot be false. We are profoundly disappointed and are ready to go to court to prove that the signatures are authentic,” she stated.

Lawyer Lazar Andries noted that the Ungheni District Electoral Council’s decision is illegal, while the accusations that a part of the signatures are false are groundless and aberrant. “We consider this is political harassment on the part of the PLDM because Iurie Toma was head of the district and now wants to run independently and this decision affected the members of the party,” he stated, adding that the Council’s decision will be challenged in all the national courts and a complaint to the ECHR will be then submitted.