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COMMUNISTS STAND FOR ELECTING PRESIDENT BY 50%+1 VOTES IN THIRD ROUND…
The opposition Communist Party (MCP), having over 40% mandates in the Moldovan Parliament, stands for electing president of the republic with 50%+1 votes in parliament in final, third round of elections, Communist MP Grigore Petrenco said on the ProTV-Chisinau channel on Monday night.
Petrenco announced his party’s readiness to vote for changing the methodology of electing the head of state. He explained, “Article 78 in the Constitution may be amended by the incumbent Parliament, after which it will be dissolved, and Moldova will have an early parliamentary election. We stand ready for an open dialog on the issue”.
However, the governing Alliance for European Integration (AEI) leaders seem to be quite skeptical about the Communists’ intentions.
Moldova’s Acting President, Parliament Chairman Mihai Ghimpu remarked in the same TV program, “We failed to find even 61 votes to elect president. How do you think can we get 68 for amending the Constitution? Of course, it would be easier to amend only one article in the Main Law. But there are many other articles that will require adjustment to the amended Article 78, which is hardly possible to do. That’s why I think it is necessary to put the whole Constitution into order once and forever”.
MP Vitalie Nagacevschi, a Liberal Democrat, disapproved of the Communists’ idea to lower the electoral norm. He believes this may lead to a situation, when not a single presidential candidate is able to receive even 52 votes in the 101-seat Moldovan Parliament.
“Opinion polls are showing that Moldovan citizens want to elect their leader themselves. We think the Communists should agree to this idea, so they will hardly vote for the constitutional amendment”, said Nagacevschi, a prominent Moldovan lawyer.
The Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party presume that adoption of a new Constitution in such a limited time is “very complicated and dangerous an exercise”.
