Three months after Moldova’s ruling Communist party was defeated in snap polls by four parties seeking closer ties with the West, and which formed a new ruling majority in parliament, the political impasse in Moldova is far from over.

Having successfully elected its nominee to the position of speaker of parliament and formed the government, the four-party coalition that adopted the name of Alliance for European Integration (AEI) looked set to stumble in its first attempt to elect a new president, which was scheduled for October 23.

The Communists were unable to prevent the election of Mihai Ghimpu as speaker and Vlad Filat as prime minister, both of which require a simple majority in the 101-seat parliament – AEI has 53 MPs. However, the Communists have a stronger hand in the presidential vote, where a nominee needs to win 61 votes to be elected.

Only one candidate had submitted his bid before the October 17 deadline. Marian Lupu, the Communist speaker of parliament in the previous legislature, who left the party to join the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM) after falling out with Communist leader Vladimir Voronin, helped propel his new party into parliament and was nominated by the AIE for the job. The Communists, who oppose Lupu’s nomination, did not put forward their own candidate.

Bad blood
Voronin has been at the helm of the Communist party since the ban on it was lifted in 1996 and served two terms as Moldova’s president in 2001/09. Before the scheduled elections in April 2009, analysts predicted he would try to remain in power if his party won, albeit not as president.

The Communists won 60 seats in the April elections, which the opposition alleged were rigged in favour of the ruling party. On April 7, two days after the election, a protest in capital Chisinau turned violent as rioters broke into the presidency and parliament buildings, torching furniture and scribbling graffiti on the walls of parliament’s meeting hall.

The police did not open fire on the protesters, but media reports said that hundreds of youths were arrested during the night on accusations of loitering with intent, while universities and schools were asked to provide the names of students and pupils that missed classes that day.

Lupu, who was seen as the leader of the moderate wing in the party and more open to contact with the West, left the Communist party soon afterward, saying that the authorities’ harsh crackdown was unwarranted. He joined the PDM, which fell short of the six per cent parliamentary representation threshold at the April elections, and boosted the party’s approval ratings overnight.

His defection clearly angered Voronin, the former Soviet police general who turned the Communist party into a regimented voting machine in parliament. Wary of any more cracks appearing in the previously monolithic party ranks, Voronin has several times spoken disparagingly of Lupu and said that his party would not vote for Lupu in the presidential election.

Lupu has mostly avoided public scrutiny, leaving former PDM leader and honorary chairperson Dumitru Diacov to do most of the talking. But on October 19 he broke his silence to appear on local station ProTV, where he said that he still had sympathisers in the ranks of Communist MPs, but was unsure whether that would translate into eight votes he needed to be elected.

Moving forward
Support for Lupu among Communist MPs could be a moot point anyway, since the October 23 election attempt could be declared void. Although the Moldovan constitution does not require more than one candidate for the election, the constitutional court did suggest in the past that more than one nominee should be put forward.

Communists routinely followed the court’s advice by nominating two candidates and then voting unanimously – in 2001 and 2005, when it had the necessary majority, and June 2009, when it was one vote short – in favour of one candidate. The AIE said it had no intention of using procedural decoys and was united behind Lupu’s nomination.

Parliament has two attempts to elect a president by November 11. Whether the vote scheduled for October 23 counts as one attempt would be up to the constitutional court, which would take no less than two weeks to rule on the issue, local analyst Igor Botan said, as quoted by Timpul daily.

A delay would help only AIE, giving it more time to pass laws that would weaken the Communists’ stranglehold on power, including a possible change in election laws that would switch from the current proportional system to a mix of proportional representation and majoritarian systems, he said.

Already, parliament has replaced the chief prosecutor and has moved to change the law regulating the state radio and television broadcaster, which has staunchly supported the Communist authorities and is the only source of information in most rural areas.

However, the presidential election has served to distract parliament from discussing next year’s budget. During the boom years, remittances from more than a million Moldovans working abroad fuelled consumption, with the value-added tax and excise duties providing up to 80 per cent of budget revenue. With remittances drying up because of recession in Western Europe and Russia, the main destinations of Moldovan migrant workers, the ruling coalition will have to either drastically cut spending, which would prove unpopular, or will have to borrow heavily from abroad.