The procedure for electing district and deputy district heads was marked by the changes that occurred in the political conjuncture in the country following the removal of the Government led by Maia Sandu on November 12, the dissolution of the temporary alliance between the Party of Socialists (PSRM) and the ACUM Bloc and the appointment of the Government led by Ion Chicu with the assistance of the PSRM and the Democratic Party. These circumstances annulled the previous commitments to form majority coalitions in districts and to choose heads and deputy district head in concert, depending on the results achieved by the two entities, which were initially undertaken by the PSRM and ACUM.
In a news conference at IPN, executive director of the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT Igor Boțan said that as a result of the change of the government partner, representatives of the Socialists and the Democrats, who supported each other, were chosen as district and deputy district heads. In parallel, by common effort, the two parties replaced the representatives of the ACUM Bloc in the posts of chairpersons of parliamentary commissions. Consequently, after the components of ACUM were removed at governmental and parliamentary levels, the process continued in the local public administration.
Of 32 district heads, 18 represent the PSRM, ten the Democratic Party, two the Party “Dignity and Truth Platform” and by one the Action and Solidarity Party and the Shor Party.
“Even if the Democratic Party and the Party of Socialists say that we have a technocratic, minority government, we see that they formed these coalitions at the local level. Owing to these coalitions, they managed to promote their representatives to the administration of districts,” stated Igor Boțan. “We saw that this combination of forces between the Democrats and the Socialists also took place at parliamentary level. We saw how the heads of some of the commissions and the leaders of some of Moldova’s delegations to international organizations were replaced. In general, we can say that even if they insist on a minority government, at the level of Parliament, delegations and at the local level this cooperation has very clear outlines.”
The results and details of the election of district and deputy district heads are available at web alegeri.md. The analytical material is innovative and covers the whole country. It is the first of the kind produced in the framework of the project “Stimulation of public participation in the 2019 local general elections in the Republic of Moldova”, implemented with support from the U.S. Embassy, stated Polina Panainte, secretary of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections.