Eight candidates for the post of mayor general of Chisinau municipality accepted the invitation of Promo-LEX Association to take part in the first of the kind electoral debate in Moldova, centering on their reasons for becoming a mayor and on the solutions they have to the problems faced by the capital city, IPN reports.

The event involved candidates on behalf of the extraparliamentary parties, namely: Oleg Brega (Democracy at Home Party), Ilian Casu (Our Party), Mihail Carlig (People’s Party), Elizaveta Moscaliciuc (“Renaissance” Party), Anatolie Prohnitski (Green Ecologist Party), Timotei Turcanu (National Liberal Party), Tatiana Tomacu (Moldova’s Patriots Party), and Valery Klimenko (Sociopolitical Movement “Ravnopravie”).

Oleg Brega said that after ten years of social activism, he decided to become involved in the political life and ran independently in last year’s parliamentary elections, in which he achieved an impressive result even if he didn’t pass the election threshold. Now, in the local elections, he wants to show that a candidate without financial resources can obtain good results and, he, being a courageous man, will manage to be efficient as the mayor of Chisinau or as local councilor.

Timotei Turcanu stated that he and his team entered the election campaign not with the ambition to win the elections at any cost. The National-Liberals come before the voters not with money and manipulation, but with expert analyses concerning the social life and with solutions to two major problems experienced by the local public administration – corruption and lack of investments.

Tatiana Tomacu said she is tired of waiting for a good mayor and a team that will deal with the local problems and decided to become involved in politics because she is an experienced manager who can efficiently manage the local affairs.

Elizaveta Moscalciuc said she is a doctor and sees Chisinau as an ill body that suffers because of the corruption in the Chisinau City Hall. She considers all the employees of the City Hall should be fired and public contests should be staged to fill the public posts so that competent persons are chosen to deal with the problems of the capital city.

Anatolie Prohnitski said his party decided to field him for the mayoralty because he has the experience needed to be a good manager. He aims to change the administration system in Chisinau as the Municipal Council is not functional. He considers representatives of the parties that will be chosen on June 14 should hold posts in the administration of the Chisinau City Hall as well.

Ilian Casu stated that he built his election campaign based on personal discussions with at least 10,000 residents of Chisinau. He formed as a politician in the U.S. where he taught political sciences for several years and comes with a different approach. The Chisinau City Hall must center more on different projects and he is the candidate who will be able to have a dialogue both with the East and the West

Valery Klimenko said that even if he realizes he will not win the post of mayor general, he considers that the representatives of his party can enter the Chisinau Council from where they can deal with the problems of the inhabitants of Chisinau. A lot of the problems faced in the capital city can be solved without large investments, like the switchover to autonomous heating systems as the people are ready to contribute so as to get rid of centralized heating that costs 3-4 times more than the autonomous one.

Mihail Carlig noted that during his eight-year tenure as head of Rascani district, he drew up plans how to solve the problems confronting the residents of Chisinau. He wants to transform the Chisinau City Hall into a system institution so that it could plan its actions beforehand. He will establish a permanent dialogue with the central authorities and will make effort to restore people’s confidence in the local authorities.

Promo-LEX intends to stage such debates in the electoral period because, according to statistics, a very low number of people can now decide who to vote for as a result of direct discussions with contestants.