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AEI has not given up direct presidential election idea

7 september 2010, 16:19 print out copy link The link has been copied to the Clipboard

The failure of the September 5 referendum on changing the presidential election procedure has not influenced on the governing Alliance for European Integration leaders’ resolution to work on to achieve a direct election of the head of state.

Speaking on the ProTV-Chisinau channel on Monday night, one of the AEI party leaders, Moldovan Prime Minister Vladimir Filat stated that despite an insufficient voter turnout, the referendum “demonstrated citizens’ desire to elect their president themselves”.

“We shall come back to this problem one day because we have received the mandate of 800 thousand citizens who came to the polls yesterday”, said Vladimir Filat, who heads one of the AEI’s constituent forces – the Liberal Democratic Party.

Actually, the referendum was attended by 792.5 thousand citizens, of whom 12.5% voted against the constitutional amendment in question, the Central Election Commission reported on Monday.

In his words, president in Moldova must have the whole society’s mandate of trust, and the holder of this post must not be a product of political schemes in parliament.

“The AEI parties’ common objective is to win minimum 61 mandates in the next Moldovan Parliament [which is a forum of 101], and if possible – even 67 mandates, which will mean a constitutional majority enough to amend the Constitution independently”, said Filat.
Democratic Party Chairman Marian Lupu said the direct election of president is “an ideal formula of ensuring a balance between three power branches in the state”.

“The system of a classical parliament, when president is elected by the legislature, is no good for Moldovan conditions because it makes possible a concentration of the state power in the hands of one person – prime minister. As for us, we intend to create a weighted semi-presidential/semi-parliamentary system, in which the government, parliament and president must keep an eye on one another. However, we have no right to put up this question to a referendum within shorter than 2 years from now. Therefore, the Alliance for European Integration will be working to win the forthcoming parliamentary elections in November”, said Marian Lupu.
Moldova’s Acting President Mihai Ghimpu presumes the parliamentary mechanism of electing president has failed as such “because it was introduced in 2000 exclusively through the effort by and for the interests of the Communists, not the Moldovan society”.

The AEI leaders once again called upon the parliamentary Communist opposition to a dialog so as to discuss possibilities of amending the Main Law directly in parliament. However, Ghimpu strongly doubts that the Communists will vote for amending the Constitution even after the early parliamentary elections.