Opposition besiege rostrum in Parliament

It took the Parliament only a few minutes on Friday to gallop through the order of the day. All the bills were passed with the vote of 54 Communist MPs as the Opposition stood helpless crying out anticommunist slogans from the central rostrum, which they blocked in protest against the unwillingness of the parliamentary majority to consider the proposals put forward by the Opposition MPs. At the beginning of the sitting, Opposition lawmakers formulated a range of proposals to be included in the agenda, but all of them were rejected by the Communists. Among them, repeated requests for the setting up of two special parliamentary commissions. The first one, an investigation commission for tracing ties between some public officials and drug trafficking schemes, a case which, according to MP Ion Plesca of the Moldova Noastra Alliance, investigators are trying to hush up. The second commission was supposed to examine the strained situation in Hancesti district, following the appointment of a new chief executive officer to the district hospital, after the death of his predecessor. The Opposition has challenged the procedure by which the appointee was selected as well as the outcomes of the contest. The proposals rejected, the Opposition requested a 30-minute break, at the expiry of which AMN president Serafim Urecheanu announced the rostrum would be blocked by the Opposition until all their requests were accepted. All the proposals of top priority submitted by the Opposition have been killed in recent years by the parliamentary majority. We are witnessing a latent putsch plotted by the Communists with a view to overthrowing the local government, stated Urecheanu on behalf of the Opposition. In protest against the created situation and against the attitude of the majority faction, the Democratic Party left the sitting hall. As Opposition MPs booed an jeered around the rostrum, the Communist faction voted all the drafts on the agenda, without bothering to debate. Most of the bills were passed in second reading, among which the witness protection law, amendments to the Tax Code and to the Law on Passports and IDs. The next Parliament sitting is scheduled for May 22.