Translated material
Save a place on the map
The new government of Moldova has set the task of saving the country
The new government, approved yesterday by deputies of the Moldovan parliament, has already been dubbed interim. It will work until early parliamentary elections are held in the country and power structures are re-formed. The office hasn't changed much. All key ministers retained their posts, and the prime minister remained the same. This is 53-year-old Zinaida Greceanii, who has returned to full-time duties as head of government after two unsuccessful attempts to become president of the country. The main task of the new-old cabinet remains the same: as Moldovan leader Vladimir Voronin explained, the government “must maintain control over the situation” and ensure “economic development in conditions of the financial and political crisis.”Ms. Greceanii was nominated for the presidency by the Communist Party, which received almost 50% of the vote in the April 5 parliamentary elections. This was enough for victory, but not enough to obtain an overwhelming majority in parliament. The president in Moldova is approved by parliament, and 61 votes out of 101 are needed to pass the candidacy.
Parliament attempted to elect a president twice - in May and June, and each time the communists lacked one vote. Three opposition factions did not take part in the vote. They accused the authorities of rigging the election results and headed for the dissolution of parliament. This scenario worked, and now the leader of the Communist Party, Vladimir Voronin, elected speaker of parliament, who also serves as head of state, will have to set a date for early elections. He is expected to do this next Monday.
To approve the new-old cabinet of Zinaida Greceanii in parliament, a simple majority of votes was enough. Yesterday 59 deputies voted for her. Until now, the communists have won 60 seats in parliament. The fact is that the former speaker of parliament, “number two” on the communist electoral list, 42-year-old Marian Lupu, half an hour before the start of the meeting, announced to journalists that he was parting with the communists, “having exhausted all opportunities to participate in the decision-making process in the party and realizing the danger of his position which he does not share." “I mean a series of conscious and well-thought-out actions aimed at polarizing the political class and, as a consequence, splitting society. As these trends deepen, society becomes hostage to the interests and political ambitions of those in power,” he explained.
Vladimir Voronin explained Lupu's demarche as a possible insult that the Communist Party did not nominate him for the presidency. “Why did Lupu join the party a little over a year ago and for what purposes?” - the president asked this question when he talked to reporters yesterday. “At that time, unfortunately, in the flux of events we did not really think about this factor, but now, when he (Lupu. - Ed. ) was not proposed by the central committee for the post of president of the country, this, of course, came into play,” said Voronin. Previously, observers did not rule out that if at the first stage of the elections the Communists fail to elect Greceaniu as president, they will nominate Lupa. But, as they say in Chisinau, the leaders of the Communist Party did not entirely trust the former speaker and were afraid of surprises if he became head of state.
The leader of the Moldovan Democratic Party, Dmitry Diakov, in a conversation with Vremya Novostey, offered his explanation. In his opinion, Marian Lupu left the Communist Party due to the fact that the party itself is “radicalizing and provoking an aggravation of the situation in the republic.” “Now, having consulted with centrist associations, Lupu will obviously also announce his participation in early parliamentary elections,” our interlocutor noted. In his opinion, in the upcoming early elections, neither the Communist Party nor the right-wing opposition parties will be able to win a convincing victory, because “centrist formations together with Lupu will take a significant share of the votes from them.”
“Lupu still won’t get rid of the image of a person from the Communist Party,” Valery Klimenko, leader of the Equal Rights movement, disagrees with Dyakov. He doubts that the former speaker will be successful in the upcoming elections. True, he also admits that the centrists, together with Lupu, “will draw some of the votes onto themselves.”
Mr. Klimenko sees a serious threat to the Communist Party in the international factor. According to him, the situation will be complicated by the fact that Western structures will more strictly monitor the upcoming election campaign - “throughout it, and not just on election day.” “The Europeans and Americans, who had already “buried” Voronin, placed their bets on Lupu,” the politician believes.
As the Chairman of the Constitutional Court Dumitru Pulbere recently recalled, parliamentary elections will be recognized as valid if 50% plus one voter from the list takes part in them. He suggested that the vote could take place on August 1. By law, new elections must be held within 45 days after the head of state signs a decree on their holding. So now it depends on when Vladimir Voronin puts his signature on the relevant document - June 15, as expected, or days later.
Despite the temporary nature of her government, Prime Minister Zinaida Greceanii set to work with enthusiasm. She presented a government program to parliament, which she called a manifesto. “The main goal of the government is to preserve the Republic of Moldova on the world map,” said the prime minister. She devoted a significant part of her speech to denouncing the opposition forces, which, in her opinion, encroached on Moldovan statehood.