PACE commission to monitor election campaign in Moldova

A commission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will soon arrive in Moldova on the invitation of the parliamentary opposition to monitor the upcoming election campaign, including the behavior of the public broadcasters. This announcement was made Friday at a news conference held by the Political Council for Dialogue and Cooperation formed by three opposition parties – the Liberal Party (PL), the Liberal Democratic Party (PLDM), and the Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN), – Info-Prim Neo reports. The PACE's commission comes after a visit to Strasbourg at the start of this week where the opposition politicians informed the European officials about the situation in Moldova after the April 5 polls. “In Strasbourg we represented the real opposition of Moldova”, said Corina Fusu, the vice president of the Liberal Party. She said the Moldovan authorities had also been invited to join the meeting in Strasbourg, but ignored the invitation, “which puzzled and concerned the European officials”. “We also found out with stupor that until now Moldova has been represented by a false opposition in Europe, which misinformed the European community. Now we have a double mission: to fight for the restoration of truth both nationally and internationally”, the PL vice-president declared. Corina Fusu added that the refusal of the Moldovan authorities to participate in the meeting and the fact that outgoing president Vladimir Voronin didn't find a minute to talk with the rapporteurs of the Council of Europe demonstrates that the current government doesn't want, and is not able either, to cooperate with the European organizations, and all it wants is funds and freedom of movement in the European space. “It is an absolutely insolent attitude”, concluded Fusu. According to the vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party, Alexandru Tanase, the PACE didn't know many details about the post-election situation in Chisinau. “We informed that Voronin's amnesty had no legal power and was a fake, a false impression was created that the opposition hadn't challenged the results of the April 5 vote, although the three parliamentary opposition parties did that, but the authorities totally ignored it”, said Tanase. He went on to say that the Europeans didn't know that Vladimir Voronin had failed to invite the opposition to join the commission investigating the April 7 violence, as he had promised Javier Solana, EU's foreign policy chief. “We were heard and understood. The trip to Strasbourg was productive”, said Tanase. Veaceslav Untila, the vice president of the Moldova Noastra Alliance, also said that the “presence of the opposition in Strasbourg dotted all the i's”. “The PACE has underlined that Moldova has still much work to do in the areas of human rights, the independence of the judiciary and the freedom of the press and has realized that it cannot trust the current government. Instead, the European officials are now convinced that they can collaborate with us”, added Untila. The representatives of the Political Council for Dialogue and Cooperation said that Josette Durrieu, co-rapporteur of the Council of Europe for Moldova, is recommending the European authorities to send a “strong and enlarged” delegation to Moldova. The trio also announced a new resolution by the European officials is going to be made in autumn assessing the implementation of the European Parliament's Resolution of May 7.