Chisinau mayor to give up recently won M.P. seat

Chisinau mayor Dorin Chirtoaca, who was first on the Liberal Party list both during the April 5 and the July 29 elections, said he would keep his current job and give up his M.P. seat for the next person on the party list. Moldova uses a closed-list proportional representation system to elect its legislature.

Mr. Chirtoaca joked that he may remain in history as one of the few people to have been first on a party list during two consecutive elections who refused to join the Parliament, but stated that he said he would not leave Chisinau city hall even during the electoral campaign.

This issue came up during the electoral debates, when Christian Democratic People's Party head Iurie Rosca repeatedly asked Dorin Chirtoaca to tell voters that even though he was first on the list, he would not join Parliament. Mr. Rosca then urged Moldovans not to vote for someone who did not even want to be an M.P.

Jurnal de Chisinau's Nicolae Negru, one of the most astute political commentators in Moldova, said after the July 29 election that the Liberal Party profited from having Dorin Chirtoaca at the top of the list because of his visibility as mayor, but that the Liberals also suffered because they were too much of a one-man party instead of a team like the Liberal Democrats (who are the second largest party in Parliament).