Chisinau municipal council rejects initiative to organise referendum on dismissing Moldovan capital's mayor

Chisinau, 13 September /MOLDPRES/ - An initiative to organize a referendum on the dismissal of Chisinau mayor Dorin Chirtoaca has been turned down.   

At a today’s special meeting of the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC), 32 councilors voted for Chirtoaca’s dismissal, while 34 votes are needed to this end.   

”I backed the dismissal of Mr. Dorin Chirtoaca, as we want to take the capital out of captivity. Namely the citizens must give their opinions on whether they want the mayor to continue his mandate or not,” councilor Oazu Nantoi said.

The leader of Our Party, Ilian Casu, said that “most Chisinau residents want the mayor to be dismissed. The state of the city does not interest Mr. Chirtoaca, he is guided only by his own interests; therefore, we supported this initiative.”  

“The city is daily degrading, money is spent inefficiently, and the citizens’ interests are not taken into account,” the head of the Communists’ faction, Vasile Chirtoca, said.  

The Socialists’ leader from CMC, Ion Ceban, said “the Liberals will be held to account for all lawless actions from the Chisinau municipality and the fight for the dismissal of capital’s mayor Dorin Chirtoaca will continue.”

A member of the CMC Liberal’s faction, Ion Cebanu, said that “the today’s meeting was a show for which work had been carried out during one year. This referendum has no legal ground and the councilors who voted today would better think that there are a lot of projects expected to be approved. This is what we must do, and not stage such cheap circuses,” Cebanu specified.    

The initiative group for collecting signatures on initiating a referendum for the dismissal of the Chisinau mayor was set up in July this year. In late last week, the Balti-based Court of Appeal admitted the appeal of Chisinau mayor Dorin Chirtoaca against the ruling by Centru district court of Chisinau on the initiative group’s registration. In this context, the initiative on organizing the referendum was rejected.      

(Reporter A. Plitoc, editor A. Raileanu)