The Our Moldova Alliance's (AMN) leader, Serafim Urechean, has said the decision to expel several members from the party aims at "strengthening the discipline, given the forthcoming 2007 local elections". At the same time, one of those expelled, Anatol Taranu, stressed that "the AMN is about to die" and that "the faction will have the fate of the former party of agrarians".

Urechean today told a news conference that he intends to speed up the political consolidation of the faction he is leading, but "given that the supporters of selfishness refuse to understand it", he opted for revoking membership mandates. "Anatol Taranu and Vitalia Pavlicenco have been expelled from the AMN for the fact that, through all their actions, they worsened the discipline of the party, harming our faction", Urechean said.

He also admitted that mistakes had been committed when the AMN was made up on the basis of several political factions, including the liberals. "At the time, we had to accept certain compromises. We knew about the political past of those we expelled from the AMN. But we staked on their responsibility, we believed that they learned certain lessons. Unfortunately, it was not so, and we had to punish all of them in order to firmly go towards the 2007 elections", Urechean added.

He denied Taranu and Pavlicenco's statements that the AMN leadership made certain infringements against the party's MPs. "It is not true that the AMN was financed from outside, including from Russia. There is no evidence. It is not true that [Moldova's first president] Mircea Snegur, who initially was on our election lists, was paid to give up being an MP. It is not true that the AMN has relations with Tiraspol. We have not discussed with Smirnov since 2003", Urechean concluded.

MPs Vitalia Pavlicenco and Anatol Taranu immediately came out with comments on the AMN leadership's decision to expel them from the party. They told journalists that "... the AMN is turning into a client party, which serves the occult interests of a group with no doctrine identity, rather than the national cause and liberal values". The AMN has become "the agrarians' party No 2", they said.

Anatol Taranu announced that he intends to form jointly with other former AMN members a new party of liberal orientation, which "will appear on the AMN's ruins".

Asked to clear up the issue over an alleged "bargain on the seats on the AMN election list", Taranu said he has no evidence in this respect, but "but it was about 150,000 dollars during the bargaining process". "Untila was in charge of compiling the electoral list. Mircea Snegur was on the second place on the list. During the examinations, he was abroad. Untila wrote him off from the list, although Snegur worked as a day-man throughout the election campaign. We admit that we lacked principledness and we kept silent then", Taranu said.

Referring to alleged finances from abroad for the AMN's election campaign, Taranu stressed that in 2004, a team of experts from Russia worked for the party, and they were not paid from the AMN's budget. // Moldpres


Publication date: 04 October 2006   

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