Reuters: Elections in Moldova

February 03, 2009

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Moldova's parliament has unanimously voted to hold an election to the chamber on April 5, the first in a series of acts that may enable veteran communist President Vladimir Voronin to stay in or close to power, Reuters has said.

According to the quoted source, Voronin is the only Communist president of a former Soviet republic, though other leaders, like Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, also derive their principal ideas from Soviet times. He has been in power for eight years and is barred from seeking a third term in Moldova.

But there has been widespread speculation that with the Communists far ahead in opinion polls he will try to retain power after the election by becoming prime minister, chairman of parliament or leader of the assembly’s largest group.

The Communists, backed by pensioners and civil servants, command 25-30 percent of the vote in surveys. Three opposition parties, broadly pro-Romanian in outlook, are likely to just clear the six percent needed to win seats.

While in power, Voronin swung from backing Moscow to opposing it on grounds that the continued presence of Russian troops in Moldova was the chief impediment to resolving the separatist rebellion in Russian-speaking Transdniestria.

He has sought closer ties with Europe, but varied on links with Romania. For a time, he embraced Romania, with which it has linguistic and cultural ties, but then accused it of undermining Moldovan statehood by offering Moldovans citizenship en masse.

REPORTER.MD