| THE AVATARS OF DEMOCRACY IN THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA 10/09/2009 |
| (2009-09-10) |
| Last updated: 2009-09-11 16:17 EET |
Defeated by a narrow margin in the early parliamentary elections in summer by the pro-European opposition, the pro-Russian communists are hard to remove from power.
It’s true that the acting prime minister Zinaida Greceanii has announced her intention to step down and serve instead as a member of parliament. A similar announcement is also expected by Monday from the former strongman in Chisinau, Vladimir Voronin, whose two terms in office allowed by the constitution have long expired. On the other hand, unable to resign to the idea that they lost power, the communists seem determined to prevent others from coming to power. They said they would not take part in the election of a new president, who requires the vote of 61 of Moldova’s 101 deputies.
Having come together in an Alliance for European Integration, the four anti-communist parties hold a fragile parliamentary majority of only 53 seats. Unless they secure at least 8 votes from the 48 held by the communists in favour of their candidate to the presidential office, who will most likely be the leader of the Democratic Party Marian Lupu, the Alliance is forced by the Constitution to hold new early elections, most probably at the beginning of 2010.
This would be the third round of elections in less than a year, which, for a state which all specialist classifications rank as the poorest in Europe would be economically devastating and politically and morally outrageous. Dragged into this never-ending chess game, the anti-Communists can only use the advantage given by their seats in Parliament. They have already appointed the Liberal Mihai Ghimpu, an old anti-Soviet militant and advocate of closer ties with the neighbouring Romania, as the speaker of Parliament.
Now, they are preparing the appointment of the Liberal Democrat Vlad Filat as prime minister. The first measure he says the future government will take is to eliminate visas for Romanian citizens. Visas had been introduced in a fit of anti-Romanian sentiment by Voronin’s men, who accused Bucharest, without a shred of evidence, of involvement in the protests following the elections in April suspected of massive fraud in the interest of the communist power.
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2025-04-03
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