Mihai Ghimpu: “In 2009, Constitution played a trick on Vladimir Voronin”

Moldova's Acting President and Head of Parliament Mihai Ghimpu issued a decree to create the constitutional reform commission, which is to identify the shortcomings in the present Constitution and draft a new supreme law. The commission will suggest modifying the procedure for electing the head of state: by the vote of 3/5 of the MPs or a simple majority of votes, Info-Prim Neo reports. “The constitutional crisis in Moldova started not this year, but in 2000. This crisis goes on because the politicians fought for two ideas – presidential republic and parliamentary republic, and modified the Constitution in 2000,” Mihai Ghimpu said during a briefing. Ghimpu said that the Constitution should be changed because nobody can guarantee that the head of state will be elected after new early elections. “No law, not even the Constitution, is eternal as life goes on and new problems appear. In 2001 and 2005, the Constitution brought luck to Voronin (Vladimir Voronin – the leader of the PCRM and the former President of Moldova – e.n.), while in 2009 it played a trick on him,” Ghimpu said. Mihai Ghimpu will act as chairman of the constitutional reform commission, while the head of the legal division of the Parliament's Apparatus Ion Creanga as its secretary. The members of the commission include Prime Minister Vlad Filat, Deputy Heads of Parliament Serafim Urecheanu and Alexandru Stoiaoglo, Prosecutor General Valeriu Zubco, Governor of Gagauzia Mihail Formuzal, Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca, constitutional law experts, MPs, judges. No representative of the Communist Opposition forms part of the commission. During a sitting of the Parliament, the leader of the Communist parliamentary group Maria Postoiko said the Communist MPs will not take part in the work of the commission because they do not consider that the Constitution should be modified. “The Communists can delegate two representatives. If they do so, the presidential decree will be modified,” Ghimpu said. He also said that before signing the decree, he consulted with a group of experts. 80% of them said the Constitution should be replaced, while the rest said it should be only modified. Mihai Ghimpu stressed that the Constitution will be modified only by referendum. According to him, if the head of state is not elected on December 7, the commission will work on the Constitution until the early elections. If the President is elected, the commission will hasten its work. Asked if the name of the official language in the new Constitution will be changed from Moldovan into Romanian, Ghimpu said that “it is time to wash this shame away.”