The transfer of power is still incomplete, as a number of institutions remain loyal to the Democratic Party, including the Constitutional Court and the Prosecutor General’s Office. This was stated by MP Liviu Vovc (ACUM/DA) at a public debate organized by IPN and Radio Moldova.
Liviu Vovc spoke about the February 2019 elections. “We saw many people being intimidated at local level. We saw administrative resources being used by the government in these elections. And at the same time, we saw public sector employees being forced to attend ‘meetings with citizens’, and later being forced to attend rallies in support of the Democratic Party”, says the MP. In his opinion, the ground was prepared in the legislative elections to repeat the “feat that was pulled” in the Chisinau mayoral election last summer, when the outcome was annulled.
“It was not by accident that last winter four Constitutional Court judges were replaced, with three of them being PDM members (...) The master plan was that if something went wrong, the Constitutional Court would be there to block any transfer of power. And that’s exactly what happened. When it became clear that compromise was found in the fight against oligarchy and in the effort to pull the country out of captivity, the Constitutional Court on June 7, in the afternoon, decided that it’s the last day when a majority could be formed,” said Vovc, noting that the ruling was only published, without a proper court sitting being held and without giving all the parties involved the chance to speak out.
In his opinion, all this was done “just so that the previous government could keep its grip on power.” The same day, the Parliament building was surrounded “with the purpose of intimidating other MPs and preventing them from congregating and forming a majority.” “What happened throughout this period was in fact an attempt by the Democratic Party to keep itself in power, and even a parliamentary committee has been set up to elucidate how this was possible, this anti-constitutional coup. I therefore conclude that, regretfully, this time we did not have a peaceful and legal transfer of power, but an attempt to escalate the situation, to create a political crisis. But fortunately the capacity of the political leaders in Parliament was sufficient to prevent bloodshed,” stated Liviu Vovc.
As for the peaceful transfer of power, “this wouldn’t have happened if not for the common sense of the bloc ACUM and the Party of Socialists. Let’s recall that when a peaceful march was announced to take place last Sunday, PDM started mobilizing their people for the same day. This could have degenerated into street fights and conflicts. We avoided this,” said Liviu Vovc.
The lawmaker also said that “the transfer of power has not yet been completed. The Venice Commission message was very critical and straightforward and everyone wonders why the Constitutional Court judges haven’t resigned yet.” According to Liviu Vovc, this demonstrates that there are still loyal to the Democratic Party and that “a period of time is needed for competitions to be organized to fill these institutions with skilled people that start working in the interests of citizens, and not of political parties.”
Regarding the $1 billion bank fraud, Liviu Vovc said: “I suppose our services have enough information, but regretfully they were in captivity and no real investigations and proceedings were initiated to see who the real beneficiaries were.”
In his opinion, PDM caused people’s trust in public institutions to plummet, and what the current government needs to do first is to restore citizens' confidence in these institutions. Liviu Vovc also said that “our goal is not the dismissal of certain people in itself. What we want is these agencies to start working in the interest of the people.”
The debate was also attended by MP Vladimir Cebotari, vice president of the Democratic Party. The Party of Socialists and Shor Party didn’t delegate representatives to participate in the debate.
The public debate titled “Peaceful transfer of power: reasons, conditions and consequences – the domestic factor” is the 111th installment of the “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” Series held with the support of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
