14/nov/2009 EURAST recomandă: interviu „Radio Europa liberă” cu M. Lupu – situaţia din R. Moldova

Interview: Moldovan Presidential Hopeful Says ‘There Is Still Time’

November 12, 2009

Moldovan lawmakers this week tried and failed to elect a new president. The Communist opposition boycotted a vote after the ruling Alliance for European Integration nominated Democratic Party leader and former Communist parliament speaker Marian Lupu. 

Now legislators must make one more attempt to elect a head of state in the next month, and a failure to choose a president would automatically trigger another round of national legislative elections next year – in the wake of two inconclusive elections this year. In the meantime, the political stalemate is threatening to sink the country’s battered economy.

RFE/RL Russian Service contributor Irina Severin spoke with Lupu about the prospects for finding a way out of the crisis.

RFE/RL: How do things stand now with the presidential election?

Marian Lupu: The situation is not simple, and the crisis is continuing. We will see how the second round of the presidential election – which must be held before December 10 – will go. There is still time. There is still a chance to continue a dialogue among all the parliamentary forces – so that in the future we can try to find a political consensus, a compromise that must, in my opinion, be based on some balance of the rights and responsibilities of the authorities, of the ruling structures, on the one hand, and those of the parliamentary opposition on the other.

This is the framework within which this dialogue must be conducted. And it will definitely be undertaken – the stakes are very high for the government. If parliament cannot elect a head of state before December 10, then there will be repeat parliamentary elections, which most likely will be held before the end of 2010.

The consequences of such a situation would be rather alarming, in my opinion. Alarming on the sociopolitical level, because there remains some uncertainty, some sense that the mission of the political class isn’t completed, that the expectations of society have not been fulfilled. There is a mood that, in my opinion, could lead to a loss of public confidence, a loss of the electorate’s faith in the political class as a whole, in the functioning of democratic institutions, the institutions of power. (text integral)

Publicitate