Vladimir Turcan and Victor Stepaniuc will become unaffiliated MPs

Communist MPs Vladimir Turcan and Victor Stepaniuc will leave the parliamentary group of the PCRM and will become unaffiliated MPs. They will officially announce their decision at Tuesday's meeting of the Parliament that starts at 10.00. The two MPs spoke about their decision during the TV program “In Profunzime” at PRO TV Chisinau channel on Monday evening, Info-Prim Neo reports. Turcan and Stepaniuc reiterated that the decision to leave the parliamentary group, and the party in Victor Stepaniuc's case, was taken after the plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the PCRM that took place on December 7 in the morning. At the meeting it wad decided that the Communist faction will not take part in the presidential election and will not vote in favor of Marian Lupu. The two said that at that meeting they proposed avoiding early elections, but their proposals were not taken into account. Both admitted that they were promoted to the posts while working as part of the PCRM and the Communist faction. “Even if I am the third on the PCRM's electoral list, I decided to leave as the PCRM's tactics are wrong,” Turcan said. “After the second election campaign, we were sanctioned by the people as the narrow party interests were put above the national interests,” Victor Stepaniuc said. Stepaniuc said he often thought about leaving the PCRM as he pleaded for the party's modernization, a social-democratic reform, another economic doctrine, etc. Asked about a possible successor of Vladimir Voronin as leader of the PCRM, the MPs said that they do not think that Voronin will soon leave this position. According to them, no worthy successor exists and there were no powerful candidates for the post of President of Moldova and Prime Minister, when the PCRM was to field candidates. However, Victor Stepaniuc said that a future successor could be selected from among the persons surrounding Mark Tkaciuk, who has a strong influence on the Communist leader. Asked if this post could be taken by Igor Dodon for example, Stepaniuc said that he has a liberal rather than socialist thinking as he promoted the liberalization of the economy despite the economic doctrines of the PCRM's program. Vladimir Turcan and Victor Stepaniuc said that now they will not be able to form a new faction as under the regulations of the Parliament, the groups are formed within the first 10 days of the constitution of the new legislature. “This does not mean that we will always vote either together with the Alliance for European Integration or the PCRM. We will conduct ourselves according to the principles formulated in our political project that we will promote,” Vladimir Turcan said, referring to a new party that they intend to found.