Liberals censure Pres Voronin’s TV statements

The Social Liberal Party (PSL) calls on mass media and other opposition parties to condemn the recent TV appearance of the President of Moldova on NIT channel. Furthermore, PSL leader Oleg Serebrian urges the President to openly declare whether or not he changed his opinion about Moldova’s political vector. Oleg Serebrian has told a news conference today that the theses voiced by President Voronin during a TV show on NIT disclose a new political course, which is not pro-European anymore. “This integration is not so opportune for us any longer”, Serebrian quoted Voronin as saying. According to the PSL leader, the aggressive language used by the head of state when speaking about the Opposition, as well as about Romania, echoes a speech by some Latin American dictator rather than a democratic leader. The way the President treated the subjects raised at the TV show represent a censurable excess, the PSL leader said. Oleg Serebrian believes that the stance assumed by the President gives away a state of confusion inside the ruling party ahead of the 2009 parliamentary elections. Of the same nature are the legislative initiatives to raise the electoral threshold to 6 percent and to outlaw electoral alliances. Asked to comment on the freshly formed alliance between the PSL and the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM), Oleg Serebrian explained that, in the absence of any agreements whatsoever, the alliance is valid just for the MPs representing the parties. However, the PSL leader doesn’t rule out the possibility of a nationwide alliance, which would include other parties as well. Currently PSL and PDM represent the second political power in most of the district councils, he emphasised. In the same connection, Serebrian mentioned that the negotiations regarding the strengthening of the liberal pole are continuing without affecting the project for forming a democratic alliance for the 2009 elections. So far, the only party to respond to the proposal was the National Liberal Party.