Iași mayor seeks Moldovan citizenship: "I will be proud"
Mihai Chirica, the mayor of Iași, Romania, announced that he is in the process of collecting the necessary documents to apply for citizenship of the Republic of Moldova. He expressed his intention to become a citizen of Moldova immediately after the parliamentary elections on September 28. The mayor stated that this decision reflects a promise he made to the people he met during his campaign leading up to the elections.
“I hope to become a citizen of the Republic of Moldova, because I promised the electorate, the students, the young people, those I met with in the period preceding the parliamentary elections: that, if the result is good, I will submit my file to obtain the citizenship of the Republic of Moldova and I will feel proud”, Mihai Chirica declared for Radio Iași on October 1.
The mayor of Iași explained that the gesture is a reciprocal one: if the citizens of the Republic of Moldova, with Moldovan documents, have become citizens of Romania, then he too, having Romanian documents, wants to become a citizen of the Republic of Moldova.
“In this way, we have, let’s say, a bilateral collaboration also from the perspective of the citizens, something that will honor me and I will do my duty towards them as a citizen, not only as a Romanian patriot who loves them and cares about them very much”, said the Moldovan from the right of the Prut.
When asked when he will submit the file, the mayor of Iași replied that he is currently “gathering documents”.
“I asked the embassy to give me exactly what type of forms I need to fill out. A colleague of mine will take care of it and I invite as many Romanians of good faith as possible to do this”, the mayor stated on Iași TV Life.
Mihai Chirica has been mayor of Iași since 2016.
We remind you that the former President of Romania, Traian Băsescu, also obtained Moldovan citizenship in 2016 through a decree signed by the then-President, Nicolae Timofti. A few months later, the next head of state, the socialist Igor Dodon, revoked Băsescu’s citizenship.
Although Traian Băsescu challenged Dodon's decree in court, the Supreme Court of Justice established, in 2018, that the citizenship withdrawal procedure had been respected.
