Mihai Ghimpu: “We will not have early elections”

The Constitution will be modified so that the early elections will be avoided, Moldova's Acting President and the Head of Parliament Mihai Ghimpu said during the program “In Profunzime” on Pro TV Chisinau channel on Monday, January 11, Info-Prim Neo reports. “We will not have early elections. The constitutional reform commission decided that there will be adopted a new Constitution where a number of articles will be modified, including article 78 about the election of the head of state,” Ghimpu said. According to him, the new Constitution will be initially adopted by the Parliament by 50 +1 votes. A national referendum will be held afterward where the people will express their opinions on the new Constitution. The referendum could take place by June 16. By this date, the caretaker President would decide whether to dissolve the current legislature or not. Under the reviewed Constitution, the head of state will be elected by 50+1 MPs or by the entire population. “It depends on the republic's form of government. But I think that now the head of state must be elected by the MPs. Later, we will see,” Ghimpu said. Mihai Ghimpu also said that the new Constitution will allow the current Parliament to work for four years. “We do nothing antidemocratic. We only want to overcome the constitutional crisis and deal with the problems in continuation,” he said. The name of the official language will be also modified. According to Ghimpu, Romanian must be the official language of Moldova. The possible constitutional reform will not cover the country's neutrality policy and the functioning of the state of law, Ghimpu added. The Parliament failed to elect the head of state by 3/5 of the votes by two rounds of voting. In order to avoid a repeat of such a situation, Mihai Ghimpu issued a presidential decree, constituting the constitutional reform commission that will examine the shortcomings of the supreme law and will present solutions to the Parliament. On January 11, the commission decided to formulate a new version of the Constitution where about 60 articles will be modified. The Parliament is to pronounce on the commission's decision.