In the conditions of enormous pressure exerted by the government, when all the institutions worked for the PAS, the results achieved by the opposition in elections are very good, MP of the parliamentary opposition Vladimir Odnostalco stated in a public debate hosted by IPN. Accoirding to him, the PAS obtained a modest score in the first round of the local elections and this shows that the government lost its legitimacy.
According to preliminary data, most of the seats in district and municipal councils in the November 5 elections were obtained by the PAS – 357. The PSRM ranked second with 256 seats. Socialist MP Vladimir Odnostalco said the PSRM’s result is very good amidst the pressure exerted by the PAS on its political rivals.
“From my viewpoint, the elections are a failure for the ruling party. When the Commission for Exceptional Situations manages the country, when everything is subjugated to the ruling party and all the institutions work for the PAS, including the senior administration, the opposition’s results are ever good. The government said that it will learn from mistakes. We believe this means that new pressure will be exerted on the opposition and the attitude to media outlets will become harsher so as to prevent the opposition from communicating with voters. We see the government’s decision to strip the opposition of the possibility of communicating with the people. We see the PATRIOT Center that was created and expect that they will continue at the same pace. All these actions are covered by the rhetoric about the salivation of the European course,” said the MP of the Bloc of Communists and Socialists.
According to Vladimir Odnostalco, the PAS candidates for mayor scored a victory in few localities against the number of existing mayoralties and this points to a decline in the government’s legitimacy. If the government distributes money to mayor’s offices according to political criteria, a large part of the local public authorities will remain without funds.
“Today, the parliamentary majority no longer reflects the people’s option and lost legitimacy. In Parliament, they have many seats, but the situation in society is different. We will continue working and will take care to do away with these scarecrows of the government, like that the budget will not be distributed to the mayor’s offices in the localities where they lost. We will take care for this not to happen as, if they act like this, a large part of the country will remain without money. We project that the ruling party after the runoffs will have about 300 mayors. There are 898 mayors in the country in total. Won’t 600 mayors, 2/3 of the population obtain financing? This would be a catastrophe,” stated Vladimir Odnostalco.
He noted that the opposition will continue working for the citizens’ benefit, without dividing society according to political and geopolitical criteria. The Republic of Moldova is a neutral state and arming is inopportune.
“We will further work for the citizens without dividing them into good and bad people, ours and yours, pro-European and those who want to do everything for the Republic of Moldova. When you say that you are pro-European, but natality is negative and is at the lowest level in the last 175 years and 38,000 people of median age have left the country, this is not pro-Europeanism. Why do we need Moldova without Moldovans? We must not attract the war to our county. When warplanes, armament from other countries come to our country, who needs this? We are a neutral state and we will continue living in peace if we don’t touch anyone,” said Vladimir Odnostalco.
The public debate entitled “Nonlocal stakes of local elections” was the 294th installment of IPN’s project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” which is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.
