Former National Liberals leave the party to join another one

A number of former members of the National Liberal Party, including two of its vice presidents, joined the initiative group for the creation of the Liberal Democrat Party (PLDM). On Tuesday, several representatives of the party told a press conference that the PNL platform supported the cause of the consolidation of the liberal pole and the creation of a new political movement on this segment. However, during the last 4 months, nothing has been done in this sense, a fact which made the group join the political initiative led by MP Vladimir Filat for the creation of the PLDM. The group which announced about its accession to the PLDM project includes the party’s vice presidents, Ion Iovcev and Octavian Grama, head of the Chisinau Municipal Organisation of the PNL, Simion Plesca. PNL’s territorial organisations in Chisinsu, Balti, Soroca, Nisporeni, Calarasi, Stefan Voda, as well as the National and Municipal National Liberal Youth organisations also joined the initiative. According to Semion Plesca, more territorial organisations of PNL could leave the party next week. He says the number of those who will join PLDM is so great that the situation resembles a merger of PNL with PLDM. Asking a journalist’s question, Simion Plesca said that he and his colleagues in the new party will give up the National-Liberal’s Moldova-Romania Interstate Union project, which according to him, is an initiative promoted by Anatol Taranu, one of the PNL’s leaders. Asked by Info-Prim Neo, PNL president Vitalia Pavlicenco said that the members of the party are surprised by the actions of this group, because the same persons opposed earlier the idea of a joint political project with Filat. According to Vitalia Pavlicenco, those who announced about their leaving from the national-liberal movement are persons who “don’t really work” and that they hoped to enter the Chisinau municipal Council on PNL’s lists in order to administrate the public goods. PNL was created at the end of the last year and registered in February 2007. Most of the party’s leaders either left or were excluded from the Moldova Noastra Alliance in the fall of 2006. Head of the initiative group for the creation of PLDM, Vladimir Filat, is a former member of the Democratic Party of Moldova.