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Sat, Feb 11 2012
Moldovan opposition wins snap polls, future uncertain
Marian Lupu will be the kingmaker in the new legislature. Projected to have 13 MPs, his Democratic Party could be heavily courted by the Communists, who would then have enough support to have their nominee elected president.
Moldova's ruling Communist party won the early parliamentary elections on July 29, but fell short of winning an outright majority in the 101-seat legislature, election authorities said on July 30.
With 98.3 per cent of the votes counted, the Communists had 45.1 per cent, which would translate into 48 seats. Final results are expected on July 31, when votes from polling stations abroad, expected to favour heavily the opposition parties, will be added to the final tally.
At scheduled elections in April, the party won 60 seats, but opposition parties claimed at the time that the ruling party rigged the elections in its favour.
Four opposition parties made it into parliament this time – the Liberal-Democrats, the Liberals and the Moldova Noastra Alliance had won seats at the April polls as well.
They were joined by the Democratic Party, whose electoral result was boosted by its new leader, Marian Lupu, the Communist speaker in the previous legislature, who left the party over the way the party handled the protest rallies in the wake of the April elections.
Tens of thousands of mostly youths, joined the rally in front of Moldova’s parliament and presidency buildings on April 7 to protest against the outcome of the general election two days earlier, which gave the ruling Communists about 50 per cent of the vote.
The violent clash saw police withdraw and leave the parliament and presidency buildings to protesters, who burned furniture and left anti-Communist graffiti on the walls. Outgoing president Vladimir Voronin, barred by the constitution from standing for a third term but still in control of his party, accused the opposition of stoking the fire of discontent.
The four opposition parties said on July 30 that they were in talks about forming a new government, but before parliament can consider the issue, it needs to elect a new president, who then would nominate a prime minister.
Presidential nominees need to win 61 votes in parliament, which would require at least partial support from Communist MPs. Unless a deal with Communists is reached, the party could decide to block the presidential election, as the three opposition parties did in the wake of the April riots.
In that case, new snap elections will have to be called, but no sooner than next year, since Moldova's elections law allows only one early election a year. In the meantime, an interim government would have to be appointed by Voronin, who would stay on until a new president is elected.
With 98.3 per cent of the votes counted, the Communists had 45.1 per cent, which would translate into 48 seats. Final results are expected on July 31, when votes from polling stations abroad, expected to favour heavily the opposition parties, will be added to the final tally.
At scheduled elections in April, the party won 60 seats, but opposition parties claimed at the time that the ruling party rigged the elections in its favour.
Four opposition parties made it into parliament this time – the Liberal-Democrats, the Liberals and the Moldova Noastra Alliance had won seats at the April polls as well.
They were joined by the Democratic Party, whose electoral result was boosted by its new leader, Marian Lupu, the Communist speaker in the previous legislature, who left the party over the way the party handled the protest rallies in the wake of the April elections.
Tens of thousands of mostly youths, joined the rally in front of Moldova’s parliament and presidency buildings on April 7 to protest against the outcome of the general election two days earlier, which gave the ruling Communists about 50 per cent of the vote.
The violent clash saw police withdraw and leave the parliament and presidency buildings to protesters, who burned furniture and left anti-Communist graffiti on the walls. Outgoing president Vladimir Voronin, barred by the constitution from standing for a third term but still in control of his party, accused the opposition of stoking the fire of discontent.
The four opposition parties said on July 30 that they were in talks about forming a new government, but before parliament can consider the issue, it needs to elect a new president, who then would nominate a prime minister.
Presidential nominees need to win 61 votes in parliament, which would require at least partial support from Communist MPs. Unless a deal with Communists is reached, the party could decide to block the presidential election, as the three opposition parties did in the wake of the April riots.
In that case, new snap elections will have to be called, but no sooner than next year, since Moldova's elections law allows only one early election a year. In the meantime, an interim government would have to be appointed by Voronin, who would stay on until a new president is elected.
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punctilious post. simply one detail where I bicker with it. I am emailing you in detail.
Or, as they say, "ucziechaj stad".
Koniec
"Poles have very sensitive ears to such things.)"
Oh, what to do! What to do!!!
Didn't mean to offend anyone with my poor Polish grammar!!!
... get lost....
Valeriu -
I would work a bit on your linguistic skills: its "Ja mowie po polsku bardzo dobrze" (with a little accent under the 'e' of 'mowie' that English keyboards don't do.) "movim" is actually Czech.
If you learned Chicago Polish, don't try to use it in Warszawa or Krakow unless you want to provoke much hilarity ! (I learned my own Polish in Krakow, where there is a slight accent different from Warsaw. Poles have very sensitive ears to such things.)
"Valeriu - you don't have to be a Pole / Polak to speak Polish; it's not a difficult language to learn, even as an adult (though I know that few Americans ever bother to learn any foreign language except possibly Mexican Spanish.) So your deduction is wrong."
I actually speak excellent Polish, although don't write it much. (Ja movim po polsku bardzo dobje) I learnt verbal Polish in the States BTW.
"Once it disintegrated, we of course had the dreadful events in Bosnia, and similar hostilities [...]
Read the full comment between Serbia and Croatia. Macedonia escaped unscathed. Moldova, in contrast, had a nasty little civil war in 1990/91, and has the ongoing issue of TransNistria on its eastern border."
There was am internal war in both of what I called "artificial unions". The war didn't get to Makedonia only by pure luck and of the fact that it started in the western part of YU and it work its way east. The Americans got involved in time to prevent it from spreading farther than Kosovo. Makedonia was next in line - make no mistake!
"In contrast, Moldova has no dispute with Romania over its name (though technically the Romanians could have objected),"
Right but the analogy is not with Greece, but with Bulgaria, to which I referred as "the mother country", and of course BG has no issue on what Makedonians chose to call themselves.
So again you didn't get my point.
"Finally, there is an interesting arrangement whereby any Moldovan with one grandparent born in pre-war Romania (whose territory included today's Moldova) can claim Romanian citizenship and emigrate. This explains both the queues outside the Ministry of Interior offices in Chisinau every morning"
I don't know where you've been, but half of the Slavs in Makedonia already have Bulgarian passports for the same reasons. That was actually one of my points of similarities, but of course you missed it.
Rest all you want but I'd work on my comprehension skills if I were you....
Valeriu - you don't have to be a Pole / Polak to speak Polish; it's not a difficult language to learn, even as an adult (though I know that few Americans ever bother to learn any foreign language except possibly Mexican Spanish.) So your deduction is wrong.
So are your comparisons. Firstly, former Jugoslavia - while it held together - was an infinitely more benevolent federation of states than was the USSR, as the Slovenes have subsequently attested. Once it disintegrated, we of course had the dreadful events in Bosnia, and similar hostilities between Serbia and [...]
Read the full comment Croatia. Macedonia escaped unscathed.
Moldova, in contrast, had a nasty little civil war in 1990/91, and has the ongoing issue of TransNistria on its eastern border. So I don't see any parallel there.
Macedonia also has the ongoing "name" dispute with Greece to contend with (where I frankly think Greece is being short-sighted and rather stupid). In contrast, Moldova has no dispute with Romania over its name (though technically the Romanians could have objected), though in speech Moldovan politicians are always careful to refer to "Republika Moldova" in both languages, and never to use the word "Moldova" on its own.
Finally, there is an interesting arrangement whereby any Moldovan with one grandparent born in pre-war Romania (whose territory included today's Moldova) can claim Romanian citizenship and emigrate. This explains both the queues outside the Ministry of Interior offices in Chisinau every morning - the building was next to our lunchtime cafe, so we saw all this at first hand - and also the fact that all the villains and low-life have managed to leave Chisinau and are now in Bucharest. So the pavements of Chisinau are now quite remarkably safe.
I think I rest my case.
Oh you are Polak?
That explains the density...
Look, one can study peoples and nations enough for connecting facts without visiting the place.
I just came back from China and to tell you the truth, all the information I have from reading about its history, is still more relevant.
All one gets from visits is a few anecdotal encounters, like the ones you described, and good visual impressions - hardly applicable in this case.
You haven't told me about how you disagree with my comparison though. [...]
Read the full comment
Well, if you didn't visit, you can't comment. Koniec, as they say in Poland (= end of argument).
Oh, did I visit?
No I haven't. Not having visit a country disqualifies a person from observing historic patterns?
OK which one of the patterns I pointed to, do you disagree with?
Alright - I'll put the "specifics" in terms that even a 5-year old child could understand:
- WHEN did you visit Moldova ?
- WHERE did you go within Moldova ?
Is this question clear enough now ?
Just answer my question, please.
It is simple enough.
You may be missing my point.
What specifics?
That they went back to Latin?
Valeri - have you actually BEEN to Moldova, and if so when and where ?
Your comments might have more weight if you could answer these specifics.
the differences don't seem as many as the similarities.
They are both ethnically closer to their mother country (RO and BG respectively), than to the artificial Union they were incorporated to after a victorious war, (WWI and WWII respectively), where they were given a formal statute of an internal "Republic" as such, with the express purpose of creating a permanent mental separation from the rest of their nationals.
Similarly now, many in both countries, have opted for passport of the country their grandparents formally identified with - them bringing back Latin alphabet is quite predictable, as [...]
Read the full comment the Soviet identity, has evaporated and the new one is still elusive on the whole.
Why do you think our bothers in Skopie build statues of Alexander the Great?
With respect to Valeri, I don't agree at all. I have spent quite some time in Moldova as an EU consultant, and I don't see any similarity to Macedonia. Nor do I see a "brainwashed" population - the events of 31 August 1989 demonstrated that, when Moldovans decided to abandon their alphabet ! (A bit of a major step for any country !!) OK, the alphabet change involved junking Cyrillic and reverting to their pre-war Latin alphabet, so as it wasn't as if they'd decided to use Arabic, but still a major cultural and physical change. No equivalent in Macedonia. [...]
Read the full comment
There is also the awkward problem of the TransNistrian enclave; again no equivalent in Macedonia.
Moldova is very similar to Makedonia in many ways. (wow, my English language computer thinks that the name "Moldova" is some sort of misspell)...
A province, forcefully incorporated to a larger neighbor, with the complicity of the major players, left in the cold after the fall of the Wall, too connected to the home country by language and culture, yet irreversibly separated by decades of brainwashing.
Final result being that they are looking for identity based on what everyone individually remembers from their childhood (school), and of course succeeding in little more [...]
Read the full comment than being excluded from the EU future their mother-countries have embarked on...