Russian MP, analyst comment on situation in Moldova
The first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Konstantin Zatulin, has said that the Moldovan opposition will be receiving support from abroad in the run-up to the early election in that country, according to a report by Gazprom-owned, editorially independent Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy on 3 June.
Zatulin said on Ekho Moskvy: "The election itself and preparations for it, the election campaign, will definitely proceed in a nervous atmosphere. Both the opposition and the authorities will fight to destroy each other. This has to do with the fact that the shock from the events immediately following the election and now also from the failed election of a president in parliament has certainly not passed; on the contrary, it has increased. In this election, as far as I understand, the Communist Party of Moldova has quite good chances, but one has to note that the opposition is also drawing conclusions from what has happened and is, in any event, relying on obvious support from abroad, from Bucharest. It is obvious that the opposition would not behave so aggressively if it did not feel support. And I am sure that such support will be provided by hook or by crook during the election campaign itself."
Russian political scientist Aleksey Makarkin is confident that the Moldovan Communists could have come to an agreement with the opposition and even elected a president today, but for this the party in power should have made some concessions, Ekho Moskvy reported on the same day.
Makarkin said: "The Communists have tried to agree with the opposition. There are three opposition factions and they all have their own ambitions. Such an agreement was probably possible with one of the opposition faction, [Serafim] Urechean's faction, but only if the Communists had agreed to form a government coalition with it.
"The Communists do not particularly want this, because they have a majority, the absolute majority, it is a little bit too small to elect a president, but it is quite sufficient for electing a speaker of parliament, the independent formation of a government and in general negotiating with the opposition for it to lend its support to elect this president they, well, somehow they do not want to give away ministerial portfolios to members of the opposition or join a coalition. Therefore, when this issue occurred, the Communists refused to make any big concessions."
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