Chisinau Council's sitting postponed after half an hour

The sitting of the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) planned for Thursday was postponed after only half an hour, as the councilors failed to adopt even the order of the day. The hotly debated about the sitting of January 22, to which the councilors of the Liberal Party (PL), Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN) and the Liberal Democratic (PLDM) accuse not to have been invited, Info-Prim Neo reports. The councilors from those three factions called the gesture an attempt to usurp the power in the CMC. In response Eduard Musuc, the CMC's chair, said “it's not the chairman's duty to invite the councilors to the sitting, but only to convene it.” He has said that sitting was convened upon the request of mayor Dorin Chirtoaca, to agree to ask the Government for a loan to pay off a part of the debt to Termocom heating company. Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca, who has suspended himself from his position for the election period, but attended Thursday's sitting, has accused the PRCM, PPCD, PSD and non-affiliated councilors, who gathered on January 22, of “having secretly modified the budget adopted in a first reading.” The mayor rejected to have asked for convening the January 22 sitting. When asked by media, CMC secretary Valeriu Didencu, in charge to announce the councilors about the sittings, has explained that the January 22 sitting was an ad-hoc sitting, convened immediately after a sitting on the same day. The PL, AMN and PLDM councilors have accused their colleagues from the other factions of having voted amendments to the CMC regulation, moving the time for statements from the beginning to the end of the sitting. That was the reason invoked by the CMC chair to switch off the microphone of the central tribune. “If the ones from the PL, PLDM and AMN had not left the hall on January 22, they would have known about the modifications to the regulation and about the ad-hoc sitting,” said PSD faction leader Emil Gutu. Thursday, the councilors were to adopt the budget in the second reading. The chair set Friday to continue the sitting. The councilors hold a moment of silence for their Communist colleague Serghei Novic, who died of cancer.