The autumn parliamentary session was influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and by the presidential elections and the number of sittings was thus almost twice lower than in the spring session. The opposition MPs criticize “the new parliamentary majority created ad-hoc” that blocked the legislature and then adopted a series of laws that are not in people’s interests.
The head of the group of the Party of Socialists Corneliu Furculiță said that given the pandemic, most of the state institutions and a large part of the privately-owned enterprises worked in a special regime. The Parliament’s activity was also influenced by the pandemic. “I think each fourth MP contracted COVID-19, as many technical employees of the legislature did. Some overcame the disease easier, while others not so easily. I also expeirnced a hard time when I was receiving treatment for the novel coronavirus. The low number of Parliament sittings is primarily due to this. Most of the sittings of the specialty commissions were held online so as to reduce contact between persons,” said the MP. Corneliu Furculiță noted the November presidential elections were another reason for such a state of affairs. Many of the parties preferred to turn the Parliament’s rostrum into an electoral platform. Nevertheless, in general Parliament fulfilled its duties. The MPs adopted the main budgetary laws – the budgetary-fiscal policy, the state budget, the social insurance and health insurance funds.
As to the priorities of the Socialist group, the MP said these are always related to the interests and needs of the people, protection of the state interests and promotion of the traditional values.
The head of the group of the Party “Dignity and Truth Platform” Alexandru Slusari said parliamentarianism was discredited owing to the parliamentary majority created ad-hoc during the autumn session. It was an unsuccessful and even shameful page in the history of parliamentarianism, when Parliament had been blocked for two months absolutely unjustifiably. During the last two weeks yet, a series of bills were carried one after another in breach of all legislative procedures. In essence, many of those laws go against peoples’ interests and they hope most of them will be declared unconstitutional.
Secretary of the group of the Party of Action and Solidarity Radu Marian said the precarious activity during the autumn session showed that the current Parliament is dysfunctional and should be past history. “This session was marked by the capture of the legislature by the criminal group called the Shor Party, which includes the main beneficiaries of the bank fraud of 2016, with the direct involvement of Igor Dodon’s party, the PSRM. The criminal way in which these two groups divided the public funds, tried to reduce the President’s prerogatives, promoted schemes, frauds, toxic laws shows that most of the members of the current Parliament don’t care about the public interest,” stated the MP.
He noted he does not expect the activity to be beneficial and productive, in people’s interests, the coming session as the PSRM and the Shor Party will insist on keeping this discredited body alive. But it is very important to have snap legislative elections as swiftly as possible. In the immediate period, the PAS MPs will focus on the exposure of the schemes of corruption, stealing of public funds and large-scale frauds involving high-ranking officials. They will also promote the commitments stipulated in President Maia Sandu’s program and will design the electoral program for the snap parliamentary elections, simultaneously proposing initiatives that can help to swifter overcome the pandemic and the economic crisis.
Secretary of the group of the Democratic Party Igor Vremea said the MPs could have worked more efficiently during the autumn-winter session if their main preoccupation had been the care for the country, the peoples’ needs, the solving of problems related to the pandemic and the economic crisis, not the problems related to party or personal interests. MPs’ party switching was unanimously condemned by Parliament on the initiative of the PDM’s group. It is a noxious factor that does not ensure the efficient work of the legislative body. For the first time last summer, the Democratic parliamentary group managed to bring representatives of authentic parties to the negotiating table so as to find solutions to the problems of farmers who suffered because of the unprecedented drought. The Democratic MPs will continue to focus on people’s problems. They realize the necessity of snap parliamentary elections and support the efforts to clean the political class. They suggest immediately working out an anti-crisis plan that would center on the management of the pandemic crisis and the economic crisis, the preparations for snap elections and the identification of the team that will implement this anti-crisis plan.
Contacted by IPN for a comment, the representative of the parliamentary group For Moldova Sergiu Sîrbu didn’t answer the phone. The leader of the Pro Moldova parliamentary group Andrian Candu was also unavailable for comment.
