Independent candidates for the position of councillor in the Chisinau Municipal Council are not treated equally as the candidates from the parties. This is fuelled by the legislation in the field, but also by the media. This is the opinion of Mihail Bagas, independent candidate for the position of municipal councillor.
At a press conference at IPN, the candidate has stated that the difficulties of independent candidates start from collecting signatures. In his case, some of them were invalidated without any explanation. At the same time, political parties can register up to 51 candidates for the position of councillor, without collecting signatures.
According to Mihail Bagas, unfortunately, the media also promotes candidates for mayor position and totally ignores the candidates for councillor position. According to him, on the day he announced his candidacy, the media paid very little attention or totally ignored him. "We believe that it is not fair towards the independent candidates, because from the beginning we chose our path as independent, we did not hide behind political parties and we think we deserve the same conditions to represent and present our program as other candidates,” argues Mihail Bagas.
The candidate states that he was not invited to any debates or election programs, except for the last week, when he was invited by three media institutions in the same time frame. The candidate also criticized the organization of the debates. Mihail Bagas is unhappy that he could not address questions to his counter candidates, and moderators' questions are too general, in his opinion.
Mihail Bagas also commented on the language of communication during the electoral debates. "For me it is not difficult to speak in Romanian or Russian, but I do not know why for the candidates for mayoral position the debates are organized in two languages, Romanian and Russian. And in the debates in which I participated the mandatory condition was to speak Romanian”, concludes the candidate.
According to Mihail Bagas, of 800 candidates registered for councillor in Chisinau, only two are independent, the rest being from the parties.
Round up of electoral events of October 16, 2019