Speaker Marian Lupu will travel to South Africa to participate in the XXIV Congress of the Socialist International (SI) in Cape Town during August 30 – September 1, the Parliament's press service announced. Lupu, who is also the leader of the Moldovan Democratic Party, will be accompanied by Democrat MPs Dumitru Diacov and Oleg Tulea. The Congress will be opened by SI President George Papandreou, South Africa President Jacob Zuma and SI Secretary General Luis Ayala. The convention will be attended by heads of states, prime ministers, other high-ranking officials and leaders of parties of social-democratic orientation from across the world. Marian Lupu is one of the key rapporteurs of the the Congress' panel two, which is dedicated to the struggle for rights and freedoms , strengthening representative democracy and gaining new democracies in the world