Nation-wide referendum on changing way of electing president, MPs likely in Moldova

The Liberal-Democratic Party (PLDM) constituted an initiative group on Saturday, February 23, designated to organise a nation-wide referendum meant to change the way of electing the Moldovan president and the members of Parliament, Info-Prim Neo reports. Over four thousand people, according to organisers, have gathered in the Opera and Ballet Theatre Square in Chisinau to take part in the event. PLDM president Vlad Filat has stated Moldova needs a profound constitutional reform, because now all the state bodies are controlled by a single person. PLDM voices that the head of the state should be a mediator among the power branches and should be elected by the people, he said. In the opinion of the PLD prime deputy president, Alexandru Tănase, in case all the citizens had had the right to vote, the present president Vladimir Voronin would have reached this position neither in 2001, nor in 2005. He acknowledged the initiative came too late, but nobody committed to it up to now. According to him, from the legal viewpoint, there is enough time to modify the Constitution before the 2009 election. However, Tănase remarked, there is an obstacle – the Parlament’s vote, which can overcome the people’s initiative. In the long run, unless that vote can be overcome, it is necessary to generate an energy within society, to demonstrate this initiative must be supported, Alexandru Tănase concluded. Another prime deputy president Mihai Godea has said that this day marks the reverse counting for the ones who have ruled Moldova for seven years. PLDM proposes to change the Constitution so that the president should be elected directly by the people and not by the parliament, as it provides for now. The party also proposes to introduce a mixed electoral system, so that 51 MPs should be elected in a single national constituency (as they are elected now,) and 50 MPs – in territorial constituencies.