No faction in Chisinau's Council is happy with the draft law on Chisinau's status proposed by Government

No faction in the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) is satisfied with the draft law on the status of the Chisinau municipality, developed by the Local Public Administration Ministry, endorsed by the Cabinet and sent to the Parliament. Mots of the faction chairpersons have stated that if adopted as publicized, the Law is going to harshen the power duality now existing between the City Hall and the CMC. Asked by Info-Prim Neo to express their views on the draft, most of the faction chairpersons showed themselves dissatisfied that the draft has not been coordinated with the local authorities. [The leader of the Communist faction, the largest in the CMC, Svetlana Popa], has stated the faction would have had “a number of a proposals.” Asked repeatedly to comment the draft, Popa has avoided to communicate with Info-Prim Neo's reporter. [Corina Fusu, the leader of the Liberal faction (PL)], has said the draft has not been considered within the faction. However she says the draft is apparently good. “Sometimes a good draft, after been subjected to amendments, can turn into a law altering in fact the essence of the draft, a thing that happened in the case of the Regulation on compensating for heat charges,” Corina Fusu says. The biggest novelty in the draft is, according to her, the fact that the document mentions “an apparatus (office) of the CMC chairman.” However the draft provides that it is not a legal entity, and the personnel can also be proposed by the mayor. “In principle it is not a bad draft, but, as a rule, they make modifications, so we have to see how the Parliament reacts,” Corina Fusu stated. She thinks the project should have been proposed earlier, not to allow conflicts within the municipality. “We may suppose the Parliament will hasten to pass this law, namely to render more powers to the CMC chairman in order to cut from the mayor's powers,” she said. [A member of the Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN) faction, Oleg Cernei (appointed by faction leader Pavel Caba)] is certain the draft was set up to be examined right now on purpose, “although it has been in the Government's and the Parliament's drawers since 2001.” “This is explained by the fact that the ruling party (PCRM) has never politically controlled Chisinau with their mayor, or with a majority in the CMC.” This draft has now emerged when there is a favorable situation for the Communists in the CMC, jointly with PPCD, PCRM, PSD and PUM. It's a very grave situation. The Parliament is not willing to discuss a law that would regulate the status of the Chisinau municipality, but comes to legalize an interest and a political clan shaped within the CMC. This is the central power interfering in the CMC's work. It's a confusing draft, with wordings as “and/or”, questioning the roles of sides in the municipal administration,” the AMN councilor said. He says “the position of the chairman is lifted to the level of a mayor, while it is but a formal position. Or, the CMC chairman is a simple councilor, elected by a majority of other councilors , while the mayor is elected by the citizens.” Moreover, Oleg Cernei says this draft is not the one “initially developed by the Local Administration Ministry, because talking representatives of the Ministry, they were shocked to see the final version of the draft. This is not the version having got the expertise of the Council of Europe and endorsed by the Chisinau City Hall,” the councilor said. Cernei suggests the Government to re-consider the draft, so that the draft “should create stability in the Council, and should clearly set out the powers of the public administration”. He says “what is now being done is nothing but delegating the powers of the Council to involve it in organizing the local elections. The draft has an obvious electoral and political traits, Oleg Cernei said. [Emil Gutu, the leader of the Social-Democratic (PSD) faction in the CMC], has said “it's a better draft than what we have now, but it is not as good as we would have liked to see”. He says the only draft he saw is the one published on the Ministry's web site. “They say it will not be the final variant endorsed by the Government, but the version proposed to the Cabinet.” The positive aspect of the draft, according to Emil Gutu, is that “finally the powers of the CMC chairman have been clearly set out, because this subject has always been an obstacle for the last half of year in the CMC.” Gutu is happy that “the powers of the chairperson's apparatus have been established, as well as the powers of the CMC secretary and of the mayor.” “It's step forward, but some moments need to be clarified even more, as managing the municipality after 2011, when Chisinau will be divided into 5 sectors as legal entities,” the PSD councilor said. Gutu opines “the role of specialty committees has been diminished.” In case the mayor will act as the executive power of the CMC, it will be super, because we now have aberrant situation, when the mayor does not execute the CMC's decisions. Emil Gutu says that “the draft does not create prerequisites for duality, this happens now because the incorrect activity of the general mayor and, sometimes, of the Municipal Council.” Speaking about the transparency the draft has been worked out with, the PSD faction leader says “all the faction leaders got the draft copies last spring, but the mayor did not want to learn the CMC factions' opinion”. “I also wondered why the the draft was included on the Cabinet's additional agenda, possibly it was an emergency,” he added. According to [the leader of the PPCD faction (Christian Democrats), Alexandru Corduneanu], the draft is “not defined in legal terms because some events have happened in the legal area for the last year.” “They have proved that certain provisions from the Law on local public administration run counter certain articles from other laws. The question is also about the fact that the mayor has not entitled to appoint direction chiefs, since this power belongs to the CMC,” the Christian-Democratic councilor says. He think “this norm must be introduced in the Law on the status of Chisinau.” They must also change the norm of appointing the deputy mayor and deputy district heads, who should be nominated both by the mayor and by a third of councilors, Alexandru Corduneanu stated. He shares the few of most of faction leaders, who say the draft does not provide for settling the conflict between the mayor and the CMC. “The relationship between the mayor and the council should be based on dialogue. But this cannot happen in a fragile democracy as ours is, subjected to administrative pressures,” Corduneanu says. “The phenomenon is explained simply: the mayor does not belong to the CMC's majority, that is why either the mayor, or the Council must be changed.” Another solution, according to Corduneanu, would be “changing the mode of electing the mayor.” “It would be normal that the Council's majority should elect the mayor. But to do this, we need to change the Constitution,” he says. When asked why the City Hall has not been consulted concerning the draft, Corduneanu has said “since it is publicized, anybody can come up with offers.” “Probably the municipality should be more insistent in this respect. We will announce which are our offers through our MPs,” he said. The draft is qualified by [the leader of the PLDM faction in the CMC, Alexandru Tanase], as “very weak, containing more contradictions than regulations”. It's conjuncture project which must be reviewed fundamentally, Tanase thinks, adding “it perfectly matches the present logic of the confrontation between the general mayor and the CMC chairman”. Obviously they pursue to diminish the role of the mayor as a representative authority of the Chisinau citizens and to strengthen the position of the chairman. Another key drawback is the lack of clear regulations consolidating the local autonomy of Chisinau municipality its relations with the central public authorities, the Liberal-Democratic faction's leader says. “According to the draft, the City Hall is nothing but an chancellery of the general mayor. The draft suggests that the regulation of the City Hall should be adopted by the CMC. It's not hard to suppose what regulation the present majority in the Council will set out for the present mayor,” Tanase added. He opines they pursue to enable the CMC to appoint the general mayor, not the citizens. “They should go by the idea of centralizing the power in the hands of the general mayor, regardless of whether we like it or not, because he is the one expressing the will of the majority of Chisinau citizens,” Alexandru Tanase said. [Oleg Oniscenco, the Humanist Faction leader], showed himself disappointed at the fact that the local authority did not participate in working out the project. “One can say the draft has been worked out by the Ministry , not taking into account the opinion of the municipality. It's the biggest problem and mistake, since we better know the area and we are going to enforce this laws,” Oniscenco said. “The municipality does not feel an autonomous feeling now it is entitled to by the Constitution. The local authority must be independent from the Government and Parliament, what is not seen in fact,” the councilor said. Oniscenco states that the adopted law “will clarify the things in terms of power duality in the municipality.” Referring to the way the Government worked out the draft in he says “I have heard that many proposals are rejected and many MPs do not have the final version, what is alack of transparency.” [Info-prim Neo's note:] The Law on the status of the Chisinau municipality is waited for since the beginning of the decade since the present legislation is outdated. The draft was proposed on an additional agenda to the order of the day of the Cabinet at its sitting of October 15, jointly with other documents. Those documents have already been considered by the parliamentarians, while the draft Law on the status of the Chisinau municipality did not yet reach the Parliament a couple of days ago.