Irina Vlah, President of the Republican Party “Heart of Moldova”, states that “the government is imposing the amalgamation of villages and the liquidation of mayoralties without consulting the people, even though it is the residents who should decide the fate of their localities. The consequences of such a ‘reform’ are evident: people will lose access to services they were used to receiving in their own village. Localities will lose development incentives. This means a direct path toward a new wave of migration and the accelerated disappearance of villages.”

Thus, the politician addressed the Secretary General of the Government, Alexei Buzu, requesting that he stop the reform.

“My address to you stems from the concerns that exist in society regarding the local public administration reform that you have initiated, which is essentially also an administrative-territorial reform. I receive numerous signals from the regions, and people openly tell me that their impression is that this reform is not well thought out and that many undesirable consequences may arise. People say that such an important reform must be based on real consultations with citizens, not on simulated consultations, while in reality the reform is imposed from the center.

Citizens also say that the reform should be carried out gradually and strictly correlated with ensuring access to public services, which is quite a challenge under the new conditions. Another issue is that people do not see sufficient incentives for the development of the new administrative-territorial structures; they do not see how the proposed reform will ensure a solid fiscal base for mayoralties, nor how public services will actually function and whether they will be of quality or merely formal,” she noted in her address to Alexei Buzu.

The politician also emphasized that “citizens have particular concerns regarding amalgamation decisions and do not understand why these decisions belong to local authorities but not to all members of the communities. Another concern is that this reform, if not well designed, will give a new boost to population outflow, which would be a real catastrophe for many localities and for the country as a whole. People are also worried about the lack of clear guarantees for localities that will lose their mayoralties, and such guarantees should refer to how those localities will be administered further.”

“Dear Mr. Secretary General of the Government! The list of people’s concerns could go on, but even this already reflects the mood in society regarding the reform you have initiated. Under these conditions, it would be a major mistake to continue promoting it in its current form. Therefore, I publicly ask you to withdraw it from the Parliament’s agenda and to launch a broad consultation process on it. These consultations must be genuine and should result in finalizing the concept of the reform so that people are left with no concerns whatsoever. If you do not do this, you will have to assume responsibility for the consequences, which may be quite unpleasant,” Irina Vlah stressed.