Future Chisinau Municipal Council will be almost twice more heterogeneous than the former composition. Commentary by Info-Prim Neo

The Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) that will be constituted as a result of the June 3 local elections will be composed of representatives of 10 political organisations, almost double compared with its former composition. In such a way, a broad coalition between the parties that will enter the CMC will have to be formed to govern the municipality in the next four years. The only variant of creating a majority from two parties would be the alliance of the communist and liberal councillors, which, for the time being, seems absurd and impossible. [Who is who] According to the latest preliminary results released by the Chisinau District Election Council, after counting about 99% of the votes, PCRM obtained about 30% of the votes for the CMC and, consequently, will have the largest number of councillors in the CMC – 17 or 18. According to the electoral list of the PCRM, the first to enter the Council is Veaceslav Iordan, who will compete for the post of Chisinau Mayor in the second round. He is followed by the last leader of the group from the former Council Svetlana Popa, head of the General Finance Division Tatiana Cunetski, acting district head of Rascani sector Reghina Apostolov, director of Franzeluta JSC Eugen Baleca, director of Banca de Economii Grigori Gachikevich, the former councillor and earlier leader of the group Valerii Pavlov, singer Margareta Ivanus, rector of the Academy of Public Administration Alexandru Roman and other less known personalities. It should be noted that PCRM had 15 mandates of councillors in the old Council. The next party with weight in the future Council will be, for the first time, the Liberal Party (PL), which polled about 18% of the vote and will have 10-11 councillors. Among these will be the leader of the party Mihai Ghimpu, the vice president of the PL Dorin Chirtoaca, the second candidate for the post of mayor in the second round, pro-rector of ASEM Vadim Cojocaru, journalist Corina Fusu and, possibly, the young singer Doina Sulac, who can enter the CMC if PL will get 11 mandates or if someone of the first ten will fail to take the mandate. The “Moldova Noastra” Alliance Party, the second group in the former Council by size, obtained about 12% of the vote in Chisinau and will have 6-7 mandates of councillor. Among the councillors are the leader of the party Serafim Urecheanu, who, as it seems, will not exchange his mandate of MP for mandate of councillor, former vice mayor Mihai Furtuna, the leader of the former AMN group in CMC Pavel Caba, former councillor Oleg Cernei, vice district head of Botanica Ana Iurascu, former head of the Health Division Victor Savin and others. AMN entered the CMC of 2003-2007 with 14 councillors. [1x4 = 8:2] The Democrat Party could multiply by four its only mandate of councillor from the former legislature after it gained about 6.7% in elections. These will be the journalist Alexandru Tanase, vice district chief of Botanica Vlad Cotet, president of the Municipal Council of the Trade Union of Education and Science Galina Talai and political analyst Oazu Nantoi. Vlad Filat is the first on the PD list, but he announced publicly that he would not renounce his mandate of MP. The Christian Democrat People’s Party, which obtained practically the same result as PD will also have four councillors, but twice less than in the former CMC. These would be vice mayor of the capital Alexandru Corduneanu, the consultant of the deputy parliamentary speaker Iurie Rosca, Mihai Adauge, former municipal councillor Eugenia Starcea and the district head of Ciocana sector Ion Gabura. The Social Democracy Party, which participated in the local elections for the first time and polled slightly over 5% of the vote in Chisinau, will probably have 3 councillors: the former councillor Adelaida Boico, the firm directors Emil Gutu and Gheorghe Filip. The leader of the party Dumitru Braghis is the first on the list, but he also will not change the seat in the Parliament for a seat in the Council. The Social Democrat Party (PSD), the Humanist Party of Moldova (PUM) and the Electoral Bloc “Patria-Rodina-Ravnopravie” (BEPRR) could be represented by 2 councillors each: Eduard Musuc and Loretta Handrabura on behalf of PSD, Ion Mereuta and Oleg Onishchenko on behalf of PUM, and Valeri Klimenko and Eduard Smirnov on behalf of BEPRR. The National Liberal Party (PNL) could have one mandate of councillor, with the former independent councillor Mihai Severovan the first on the list. About one third of the councillors that will enter the future CMC worked in this post in the previous legislature too. [Three scenarios…] Examining the configuration of the future CMC, it is hard to imagine what alliances will appear. As it was earlier said, the only variant of creating a coalition from two parties would be the one between PCRM and PL, which, with 27-29 councillors, would hold a comfortable majority in the local “legislative”, but this hypothesis seems incredible, at least at this stage, when the representatives of the two parties will have a life-and-death struggle for the ‘high stake’ of the current polls – the post of Chisinau Mayor. Under these circumstances, the representatives of the parties in the CMC will have to form pacts or coalitions with three or more parties, what brings on, from the start, fragility, a greater risk of misunderstandings, splits, dissolutions, political “divorces” etc. Considering “the marriage” between the communists and liberal as impossible, three scenarios take shape from the start. The first would be an alliance formed of councillors that represent the present parliamentary coalition - PCRM, PD and PPCD, plus, possibly, BEPRR and PUM, which would be copy of the situation existing in the Parliament and of that that existed in the former CMC at the end of its activity. But taking into account the fact that PPCD has already announced its decision not to form a coalition with representatives of the ruling party, that PD is also inclined to do so and BEPRR positions itself as an anticommunist party, it is difficult to foresee such a scenario. An alliance between the communist councillors and the AMN and PDS councillors also seems practically impossible. Another scenario would be to create a large coalition between representatives of the non-communist parties – PL, AMN, PD, and PPCD – and, probably, representatives of other parties. It is hard to imagine how these parties will ‘cohabit’, given the frequent divergences between their leaders, the April 4 vote etc. But it is possible that the councillors will follow the saying “the end justifies the means.” The third scenario envisages temporary coalitions, including between parties and doctrines and diametrically opposed programmes, as it happened in the former CMC, depending on the interests of each party or even of each councillor apart. Taking into account the old practice, this scenario seems the likeliest at the moment. To a great extent, the configuration of the future CMC will depend on the person that will be elected mayor general. If Veaceslav Iordan becomes mayor, PCRM will have more chances of forming a coalition and the representatives of the other parties could not resist offers of such posts as vice mayors, district heads, division heads negotiated at upper level, by the leaders of the parties. On the other hand, if Dorin Chirtoaca wins, the second scenario will have more chances. [Lesson of History] The former CMC was also composed of 51 councillors, but they represented 6 political organisations plus one local independent councillor. Initially, there were three parties – PCRM (25 mandates), former Social Liberal Alliance “Moldova Noastra” (14), PPCD (8), and PD (1), the Movement “Ravnopravie”(1), the PSD-PSL Block (1), and, respectively, the independent councillor. At first, the posts of vice mayors had been divided between PCRM and ASLMN. Later, the communist vice mayors resigned and the mother-party declared itself in opposition. As a result of an understanding between the other councillors, a post of vice mayor and one of district head went to PPCD and a post of county head to the Movement “Ravnopravie”. Later on, after the parliamentary elections of March 2005, the leaving of the post of mayor by Serafim Urecheanu, the April 4 vote, the splits and purges from within the political organisations, the scales tipped in favour of PCRM, which formed a coalition with PPCD and the so-called social democrat party composed of turncoats towards the end of the mandate. This “coalition”, with the help of the several acting mayors that took office in turn, resorted to massive purges of staff, remaining in the memory for the adoption of a number of decisions disputed in court and by the society, such as to dismiss vice mayor Mihai Furtuna, head of the Child Rights Protection Division Svetlana Chifa and, especially, to privatise “Antena C” and “Euro TV” and dismiss the mangers of the two stations, etc. It seems that the voters also learned the history lesson. The next history page of the CMC will be written by 2011.