The leaders of the ruling Alliance for European Integration (AIE) have announced that the procedure of electing the president in the parliament would be resumed. The decision was made public during a talk show broadcast live by a nationwide TV channel in the evening of 10 February.
According to the three leaders, the decision to give up a constitutional referendum came from the senior coalition Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party, whereas the junior coalition Liberal Party (PL) had to comply with it, as PL leader Mihai Ghimpu said during the talk show.
The AIE leaders reasoned their decision by the fact that an eventual referendum would have failed because of the pressure created in society and taking into account the failure of the 2010 constitutional referendum.
Democrat leader Marian Lupu said that the date of the presidential election would be made public most probably at the first meeting of the parliament's spring session, due to take place on 16 February.
The three leaders said that the idea of amending the constitution via a referendum is still valid and that a referendum may take place by the end of the mandate of the current parliament. "A number of articles of the Fundamental Law have to be amended and it is not ruled out that we will return to the adoption of a new constitution," Liberal Democrat leader Vlad Filat said.
The AIE leaders said that they would negotiate the presidential election issue with the Dodon group (three MPS who defected from the Communist Party in November 2011). As for potential presidential candidates, the three leaders said that the issue had not been discussed yet. "We need a person having moral integrity," Filat said.
For his part, PL leader Mihai Ghimpu said his party yields the post of parliament speaker (which belongs to it according to the agreement on the AIE creation, but which it temporarily ceded to the Democratic Party) and that the PL would nominate no presidential candidate as it has only 12 MP mandates, whereas to put forward a presidential candidate one needs 15 signatures.
The ruling alliance has repeatedly failed to elect a president on its own as it is short of three votes. On 15 January the AIE announced its plans to hold a constitutional referendum to decrease the number of votes needed to elect the president in the parliament from 61 to 51. The decision to give up the referendum plans came after numerous protest rallies staged by the opposition and after waves of discontent even among the staunchest backers of the alliance.
Moldpres