Communists take first formal step for no-confidence referendum

An initiative group composed of Communist Party members, councilors and lawmakers today submitted a set of documents to the Central Election Commission (CEC) in a bid to initiate a nationwide referendum for a popular no-confidence vote in the current Parliament, Info-Prim Neo reports. “We hope the initiative is accepted. If we get the authorization, we'll have three months at our disposal to collect the 200,000 signatures required. For such a large party as the Communist Party this number of signatures is not so big”, councilor Valentin Todercan, a member of the 2212-strong group, told reporters. Igor Grigoriev, a Communist member, said that part of the signatures had been collected at a recent pro-Communist assembly, called the Civic Congress, held in Balti. “The assembly was also attended by members of the Civic Congress' branch in the Transnistrian region, who will collect signatures there. For this purpose we submitted an additional petition to the CEC to get instructions as to how this list can be validated by the local authorities”. Anticipating a positive outcome for the referendum, Communist MP Anatol Zagorodny said: “It would be right if the current government decided to quit, dissolve Parliament and call early elections”. The CEC is to pronounce a decision on the initiative within 15 days.