Chirtoaca’s First 100 Days as Mayor of Chisinau. Info-Prim Neo Review, Part V

Observing democratic societies’ tradition of 100 days, Info-Prim Neo News Agency carries out a series of analysis of the performance of Chisinau administration designated after the last local elections. The previous four parts of the review published between October 29 and November 1 described the steps taken by the new Mayor General of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca and his relations with the municipal functionaries, the central administration and with the political parties, in particular with the factions of the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC). Besides a number of pluses identified in the performance of the mayor in the examined period, we can point to a certain dose of non-transparence in his political relations in the process of forming the majority coalition in the CMC. A relevant argument is that while he ahs been in office, four months on November 5, the mayor held no new conference, broadcast no press release on this topic, which undoubtedly was of the greatest public interest and was a constant source of worry to the Chisinau residents, especially the ones that were waiting for changes after the June 3 local elections. The conferences and communiqués would have revealed the new mayor’s internal needs for skillful communication with the voting public. In a way, it is an unexpected conclusion because the mayor is an open-minded person who takes care of his relations with the press. [Form and content in the relations with the press] It is the first time that a mayor of Chisinau listens to the press and treats it adequately. It is the first time that the municipal functionaries are permanently and systematically encouraged to provide information to the press. It is the first time that the functionaries are sanctioned for hindering the press’ access to meetings and information of public interest. The head of the General Education Division Tatiana Tverdohleb was publicly reprimanded for such behaviour. “The local administration does not deal with information that can be considered as state secret and therefore, the journalists have the right to obtain any information of public interest,” the mayor Dorin Chirtoaca said not only once. It is the first time that the mayor demands that the police to respect the status of the press and of the journalists. A significant detail: it is the first time that the reporters attending the long and not always pleasant meetings of the CMC are invited for a tea alongside the municipal councillors and administration of the City Hall. It is said that it was the mayor’s initiative. At the same time, the journalists lost certain positions which they earlier held in the City Hall. They lost the somehow strategic places that they had at the semicircle table located in front of the councillors. These were places that corresponded more to their status of observers of what happened in the local public administration and in Chisinau in general. Now they stay dispersed. If they come earlier they can find a free chair. The mayor general took their places and joined the mayors of suburban settlements. But the subordinate functionaries can find the mayor’s statements about the importance of reporters’ job unconvincing. The new mayor will probably lack in the future that “supervising eye” from the past. Also, the press got hampered in the process of qualified documentation owing to a modification introduced by the mayor. The functionaries are not called to report to the central rostrum anymore. They report from their seat, not even standing up. The journalists, especially the ones from radio and television channels as well as the photographers and all the rest do not manage to qualitatively take pictures and record the sound, to efficiently and sufficiently take notes. The video cameras must go from one side of the hall to another, inconveniencing the audience, and this can serve as pretext for banning or limiting the access of the press, following the example of the Government, Parliament and Presidential Office, including by introducing the accreditation system. It looks that the mayor has something to lose. It is well known that the students need to prepare better to be able to answer the lesson in front of the class than from their seats. In the second case, the student can have a glance at the book or at the neighbour’ s notes, can hear the desk-mate whispering or can at least understand when he is wrong as the neighbour will tell him by kicking or hitting him. He can also hide from the looks of the inspectors (journalists) that attend the lesson. Probably, in this modification the mayor must also look for the roots of the phenomenon of “functionaries’ corporative solidarity” to which we made reference in the second and third parts of the review…. Much more serious is the fact that at the end of the fourth month in office, the mayor general Dorin Chirtoaca did not show that he is really preoccupied with the privatization of the municipal public stations Radio Antena C and Euro TV Chisinau and where these preoccupations are heading for. Three months ago, he accepted the task to study by himself the case entrusted by the CMC, though, at the same meeting, it was suggested to create a commission composed of municipal councilmen for the purpose. It seems that at that time such behaviour was justified from political viewpoint as the PPCD councillors forming part of the majority coalition voted in favour of privatizing the municipal stations alongside the Communist councillors, pursuing a much more pragmatic interest. PPCD has long ago left the coalition and other interests for postponing the case could have appeared meanwhile. Also, several months ago, the mayor was asked to provide the reporters with an office with minimum furniture and equipment, where they can fulfill the obligations… [Relation with the citizens] The citizen is following attentively the preoccupations of the local public administration and forms his own point of view. This is because the citizen is represented in the Chisinau administration by the mayor general, who did not yet forget to look at the things from the same angle. Intimately, the mayor devoted hours and whole days to the citizens, holding meetings with them. It is said that he preferred to answer the questions of the Chisinau residents by a telephone line at the municipal paper “Capitala”, event scheduled long ago, than to go to meet with the Romanian Prime Minister Tariceanu, who came to Chisinau on a short visit. It is true that the meeting was not planned to be bilateral. He quickly understood that he cannot deal with the problems of all the applicants. He instructed the district head’s offices and the divisions of the City Hall to review the attitude and way of working with the citizens. It is not yet known if and how the subordinates cared out the order. It seems that the new mayor does not count much on the new information and documentation centre for citizens that was set up in the City Hall by the former interim mayors Vasile Ursu and Veaceslav Iordan. The two considered that the given centre would bring the divisions closer to the people, would debureaucratize and decriminalize the relation between the functionaries and the Chisinau residents with the aim of combating bribery. Dorin Chirtoaca did not express his opinion on this, but given that the centre’s activity is not yet among his priorities, we can guess that it does not count much for him. Maybe he is right because the citizen anyway comes to the City Hall from the furthers corner of Chisinau and of the suburbs, while the services provided by the centre must be brought as closer to the citizen’s place of residence as possible. …It is not known if the incumbent mayor observes the rule formulated by the interim mayors that certain types of documents issued by the centre, especially the ones related to plots and constructions must be issued to the citizens only if they are authorizeed by the mayor’s councillors. [Did the change in Chisinau come or not?] The new mayor general of Chisinau withstood and this is one of the basic conclusions reached after analyzing the first 100 days in office. He stood up in conditions that are tough even for people with richer administration experience than he. It seems that he did not choke over the pile of papers on his table and did not give in to the political and economic interests and maneuvers from around him. The new mayor brought his own style of administration in the City Hall. The well-prepared meeting in open air when he uncovered the businesses of some of his subordinates, the investigations regarding the alleged involvement of the president’s car in a road accident by inviting employees of the municipal divisions to the City Hall’s meeting are only some of the examples that show professional conduct, personal courage and will to change the things to the better in Chisinau. But all the mentioned details are related to the form. To really change the things, the form must be filled with content. The change comes both through form and content. Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca still has time to do this, but less and less. Over 100 days have already passed.