The local organization in Hâncești of the Party “Action and Solidarity” (PAS) will not support Olesea Stamate in the March 15 elections, as the party’s National Political Council decided in a meeting last week. The organization’s chairman Marcel Petrușan posted on Facebook that at the local level it was decided to support independent candidate Grigore Cobzac, IPN reports.

“We, those from Hâncești, permanently applied a democratic principle when taking decisions. Consequently, having the candidate designated by the center, Missis Stamati, and a candidate who is a member of the PAS, fielded by us, Mister Cobzac, we solved the dilemma by vote. Our colleagues unanimously chose candidate Cobzac, whom we will support,” wrote Marcel Petrușan.

In a posting on Facebook, the PAS also formulated its stance on the situation in single-member constituency No. 38 Hâncești and on Grigore Cobzac’s decision to register as an independent candidate. “In the discussions with the party’s leadership, he said that he does not intend to run in these elections. We regret the created situation. The PAS will continue to support Missis Olesea Stamate, who was fielded by the National Political Council of the PAS,” noted the party.

On January 24, which is the last day for submissions for registering initiative groups and for asking for support signature sheets, Grigore Cobzac applied to run as an independent. Grigore Cobzac served earlier as a Liberal-Democratic MP. In the elections of February 24, 2019, he ran for MP in Hâncești constituency on behalf of the ACUM Bloc, but didn’t manage to obtain a seat as he finished second after Democratic candidate Alexandru Botnari. The latter vacated the seat of MP in favor of the post of mayor in November 2019.