Bashkan Formuzal wants money from country’s reserve for elections, not from autonomy’s reserve

The elections for the Gagauz legislature will take place on the due day. The concerns of come analysts the poll could be postponed for a later date have not become true, governor Mihail Formuzal told a news conference on Tuesday, March 4. The Governor of the Gagauz territorial-administrative unit has informed that the Comrat electoral commission already received half of the sum necessary to organize the poll. Those 600,000 lei were taken from the autonomy’s reserve fund, as decided by the People’s Assembly. Mihail Formuzal has described the decision as incorrect and to the detriment of Gagauzia’s interests, saying that money would better be used for social needs. The bashkan hopes the central authorities will review their position and will transfer 1.2 mln lei necessary for the vote from the Government’s Reserve Fund. “The Gagauz people are Moldovan citizens as the people from other districts. I don’t understand why this exception is made for the People’s Assembly elections, as long as the local elections are funded from the state budget. This position estranges the autonomy people from the center even more,” he said. According to the governor, the country’s leadership admits a mistake also because it does not allocate money to a structure it has repeatedly qualified as one of the most performing. Mihail Formuzal says he declined Chisinau’s proposal to borrow that money, because he does not want to contract loans. The Bashkan says the Gagauz authorities had to pay off 6 mln lei last year – a loan borrowed during the rule of former governor Gheorghe Tabunshchik and now, when the autonomy’s debts decreased, he does not want to incur new ones. Asked where he was going to take the rest of the money from to organize the poll, Formuzal has answered most probably he will exhaust the autonomy’s Reserve Fund. In another context, Formuzal has infirmed he would be having difficult relationships with the People’s Assembly. According to the bashkan, Gagauzia has demonstrated the whole country an efficient model of cooperation between the legislature and the executive, despite different political visions. The governor has acknowledged he disagrees with many decisions of the local parliament, including the one on postponing the elections three months, but he put up with and has observed them. Forecasting the future structure of the People’s Assembly, Formuzal has opined the independent MPs will make up the majority. “Party ideologies will not matter, only the interests of the autonomy, of the people and of the country,” he said. The bashkan has not rejected that most of the independents would be loyal to him, but has underlined they are rather loyal to the changes he is promoting. “We don’t ask anybody to be loyal to the bashkan, we want to have a legislature with well-prepared MPs able to realize their responsibility,” Formuzal has stated, specifying that in its present formula, the People’s Assembly was way too politicized, what hinders it to take pragmatic decisions. The elections in Gagauzia are scheduled for March 16. According to the governor, the race is balanced and without incidents, as 5 hopefuls run for one seat.