news agency Infotag

PLUGARU, PETRACHE WARNING AGAINST USURPING OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER

The idea to start electing president in Moldova by 50% + 1 votes of parliamentarians [i.e. by 52-of-101 deputies in parliament] can easily lead to usurping the presidential power and to illegitimacy of the head of state, presume free-lance lawyers Anatol Plugaru [ex-minister of state security in 1991-1992] and Mihai Petrache [former chairman of the Centrist Union of Moldova].   

At the news conference they organized in Infotag today, they offered an opinion that the amending of the Constitution’s Article 78 on the method of electing president is in contravention with democracy.   

“An overwhelming majority of Moldova citizens have stated in numerous opinion polls lately that they want to elect their president themselves. But what are the incumbent authorities going to do? By suppressing the electoral norm down to 50% + 1 vote in parliament [against the current norm of three-fifths, i.e. 61 MPs], they are reducing the president’s representative level and responsibility, and are undermining citizens’ trust in such leader”, said Mihai Petrache. 

Both lawyers presume that by acting so, the governing Alliance for European Integration is simply passing the state power over into the Communist Party’s hands, though all of them are claiming to be principal anti-communists.  

Anatol Plugaru said, “The AEI constituent parties are waging between one another a fierce struggle for state posts, not for stability or order in the country. And the more disorder develops in the country in the result of such structure, the more chances the Communists are going to have at the forthcoming early parliamentary elections. The ruling coalition is hypocritical and based on lies. What we all are suffering now is not a constitutional or political crisis, but a crisis of conscience. Our rulers do not scruple to use the juridical ignorance of broad population masses to manipulate them”.  

The two lawyers said that the Alliance for European Integration constituent parties represent merely 30-33% population, so the coalition cannot indeed be regarded as a representative force. Besides, the Alliance is too fragile an organization, because the leader of Democratic Party [12.54% ballots at the July 29 elections], Marian Lupu, has not received a single significant state post, while, for instance, the leader of the Liberal Party [14.68%], Mihai Ghimpu, is chairing the Parliament in the parliamentary Republic of Moldova, and is an acting president.    

Earlier, Plugaru and Petrache suggested avoiding an early parliamentary election as follows: Speaker Mihai Ghimpu tenders resignation as acting president in favor of Prime Minister Vlad Filat, who will be acting as head of state until a new president is elected.