IGOR DODON SAYS HE KNOWS HOW TO AVOID SNAP ELECTION BUT HOLDS BACK THAT THIS WILL BE ALLIANCE WITH DP – REGNUM

Moldova President Igor Dodon has described how he is going to avoid an early parliamentary election, but he did not say that this is going to be an alliance with Vlad Plahotniuc’s Democratic Party, the Russian news agency Regnum wrote on Tuesday.

“President Dodon accused the opposition ACUM bloc of upsetting the negotiations on forming a governing coalition with the Socialists, but he still believes that a snap election can be avoided”, wrote Regnum.

“Dodon stated in his recent interview with TASS [Russia’s official news agency] that for this it is necessary to elect Party of Socialists (PSRM) Chairperson Zinaida Greceanii as Speaker of Parliament. The only possible variant for such a scenario (which Dodon passed over in silence) is to elect the Speaker by the votes of Dodon’s Socialists and of Plahotniuc’s Democrats, and subsequently to have this alliance vote for appointing a government. What Dodon did stress was that such would-be government must re-establish Moldova’s good relations with Russia”, said the Regnum article.

Regnum referred to a commentary by Chisinau civil society activist Igor Tulyantsev who said that in his interview with TASS President Dodon provided a clear answer to the recent question asked by Dmitry Kiselev [prominent Moscow journalist, the presenter of the 3-hour-long Sunday evening political news review on the federal Russia TV channel] about whether or not Dodon will pick up the “poisoned apple” thrown to his feet by Vlad Plahotniuc.

“The PSRM-ACUM coalition negotiations have in fact failed due to the Socialists’ unwillingness to discuss the [ACUM-proposed] de-oligarchization of the country and removing Moldova from under Plahotniuc’s control. The opposition explain this [unwillingness] with Dodon’s dependence on the DP leader”, wrote Regnum.

The article also said that Moscow, which had long considered Dodon as its partner, stands against his coalition with Plahotniuc, who is being accused in Russia of the organization of a hired murder and of his participation in the illicit withdrawal of 37 billion rubles from the Russian Federation.

“At the same time, Dodon had tried for several months on end to convince his Russian ‘partners’ of the expediency of forming a coalition with Plahotniuc’s Democratic Party – an organization consistently waging a steadfast anti-Russia policy last few years”, said the Regnum article.