The political culture is based on general culture and the aggressive behaviors in the election campaign, discussions with attacks on the person are a manifestation of the low level of general culture, ex-Deputy Speaker of Parliament Iurie Țap, former mayor of Florești, stated in a public debate hosted by IPN.
“When you read and analyze the messages, you see that many candidates simply don’t realize the place and role of the local public authorities. They don’t make a difference between the executive authority, which is the mayor and the local council, and the deliberative authority. The European Charter of Local Self-Government says that autonomy belongs to the groups that are managed by assemblies or councilors and that can have executive authorities. When you say that you will do one thing or another, but don’t speak about the instruments of cooperation with the council and how you intend to do it, this shows lack of political culture, when one doesn’t realize the place and the role,” stated Iurie Țap, noting one should realize the essence of the post to which they aspire.
As to participatory political culture, Iurie Țap said one cannot make the citizens happy without engaging them and decisional transparency is very important here. “This is the modus vivendi of a democratic society,” he stated, noting that the current government is pro-European but the analyses conducted by Promo-Lex and other organizations show that transparency is under 50%. “When I see that the Parliament’s regulations provide that the MPs question the Cabinet on the done work once during a session, but such a report is not presented during four sessions, I wonder what kind of decisional transparency is there and how can they make the citizens take part?”.
The ex-Deputy Speaker considers that the state, the political elites should cultivate the political culture of the citizens by the own example and ensure the necessary transparency and openness for interaction with the citizens. As a result of decentralization of power, the groups start to manage themselves and to decide their fate and political culture is formed this way. But the main role of the state is to shape this political culture by creating powerful institutions, responsible and transparent public authorities.
Iurie Țap noted that political culture is a complex issue. “The state is the main instrument and it should deal with this decisional transparency. The state should be transparent as transparency is the modus vivendi of a democratic society which influences the involvement of the citizens. As a former mayor I can say that either it goes to local taxes or other issues, the citizens should ultimately decide how they want to live. They should take the decision. The fact that we haven’t yet reached such a level is because the political culture of the political elite is low,” he stated.
The public debate entitled “Political culture at local and European levels: contexts and examples” was the third installment of the series “Stimulation of discussion in the mass media about traditional particularities of local elections and the need for Europeanization” that is staged by IPN News Agency with support from Soros Foundation Moldova.
