Vasile Tarlev to be re-elected as Centrist Union's president

Vasile Tarlev will run again for the president of the Centrist Union after the Justice Ministry rejected to accept him as such, invoking the voting was not secret, Info-Prim Neo reports. He announced this decision on November 19 at a news conference in Chisinau. Vasile Tarlev calls the Justice Ministry's refusal as “groundless”. According to him, the party members voted for the voting procedure in electing the president to be opened at their congress. A new congress to elect Vasile Tarlev again and secretly will be held on December 13. Former premier Tarlev adds the state bodies also try to liquidate the National Producers Association, chaired by him, or to oust him from the position. “The CEOs of 10 state-owned companies were told by the presidency to resign or to leave Tarlev's association,” he said. “Probably it's a play from a project meant to discredit Tarlev,”he supposes. He says the Foreign Ministry issued a letter two weeks ago demanding to withdraw the diplomatic passports of the Tarlev family. He says his two daughters have never had diplomatic passports, and he is knows many children and even grandchildren of public servants who have diplomatic passports. He reminded that both the president and the prime-minister are entitled to diplomatic passports for life. The former premier complains he does not have access to the public radio and television, which showed no interests for the drive of his association “Buy Moldovan!” “We can draw the conclusions by ourselves after these kind of pressures,” he said, when asked to comment on rumors he would be president Voronin's man and all his recent problems are but political tricks. Vasile Tarlev was a prime-minister from 2001 to March 2008. On September 27 he was elected as president of the Centrist Union, after Mihai Petrache yielded his position.