The exodus of many of the inhabitants of the capital city abroad was one of the reasons for the low voter turnout at the new mayoral elections that were held in Chisinau municipality on May 20, said Socialist MP Vlad Batrancea, the representative of the Party of Socialists’ candidate for mayor Ion Ceban, IPN reports.

The MP noted that about 200,000 of the over 600,000 people put on the voter rolls in Chisinau went abroad. “Therefore, there are about 480,000 voters in the capital city and half of these cast their ballots,” Vlad Batrancea stated in the program “In Depth” on ProTV Chisinau channel. According to him, the people didn’t vote also because they became disappointed after the previous local elections, of 2015, when many things were promised, but weren’t done.

Deputy chairman of the Party “Platform Dignity and Truth” Liviu Vovc, the representative of the party’s candidate for mayor of Chisinau Andrei Nastase, said the May 20 mayoral elections were early ones and it was expected that the turnout of voters will be lower than in the case of ordinary elections.

The June 3 mayoral runoffs will involve Andrei Nastase and Ion Ceban.