Former Prime Minister Pavel Filip was elected chairman of the Democratic Party of Moldova during the ninth extraordinary Congress of the party, held on Saturday, September 7, in Chisinau. Pavel Filip was the only nominated candidate for this position and was unanimously supported by nearly 700 Congress delegates.
After being elected leader of the PDM, Pavel Filip thanked party members for placing their trust in him. He added that the PDM had a lot of work in terms of internal diagnostics, so as to identify internal shortcomings, because "even with hundreds of successes, the party unexpectedly found itself in opposition". Pavel Filip gave assurances that each party member would be heard and each opinion would be discussed. He also promised that the PDM would become a popular and successful party.
At the Congress commencement, Pavel Filip, said that "Moldova currently has a hybrid government, which is unnatural" and that "none of the government's commitments envisage improvements in the daily lives of people". "Over the course of three months, after coming to power, its vision was and remains to persecute political opponents, by crafting political criminal cases, by issuing orders to prosecutors and by dismissing from office professionals in favor of party members", said the new PDM leader.
According to Pavel Filip, the current government started to undermine the state, betrayed national interests and removed the country from the regional circuit. He also claimed that "the situation in which Moldova found itself is comparable to the armed aggression of 1992", because "we are witnessing a direct attack on national sovereignty and regional security". The former prime minister argues that one of the biggest mistakes that PDM committed is that it did not politically respond to the "demonization campaign to which the party and its leaders were subjected".
Pavel Filip urged the PDM representatives to shoulder the transformation of the party into a European one, with a social orientation. The new leader also said that "PDM has the most professional team, with exceptional people and organizations, who, if placed in the country's service, will not fail to swiftly deliver the results that the citizens expect".
Former Speaker of the Parliament and former Deputy Chairman of the PDM, Andrian Candu, said that the Congress was about concluding a chapter in the history of the party, turning the page and starting to write a new chapter. "Whether or not PDM will succeed in the future, whether this new chapter will leave a mark in the country's history as a success story, depends only on the team of the Democratic Party", said the PDM MP.
The honorary President of the PDM, Dumitru Diacov, said that what happened in early summer in Moldova, namely the alliance between the PSRM and the ACUM Bloc, was an accident. According to Dumitru Diacov, the fact that the PDM has become an opposition party is a matter of analysis and that local elections are a test for the party, which may allow it to return to the political scene.
On June 24, the former leader of the party, Vlad Plahotniuc, announced his resignation as party chairman, a position he has held since the end of 2016. Later he resigned as MP.
