Voronin not eligible for president, expert

Moldova's ex-president Vladimir Voronin is not eligible to be elected for another term as he already served two terms in this post, in the periods 2001-2005 and 2005-2009, maintains independent expert Vitali Catana. Communist MP Igor Dodon has stated recently that Vladimir Voronin, the party's leader, will be able to candidate for the country's top job if the upcoming referendum in September renders the presidential election a subject of direct popular vote. The Communist Party is invoking the Constitution, arguing that Parliament Speaker and concurrently acting president Mihai Ghimpu has interrupted the successiveness of Voronin's terms, which makes the Communist leader again eligible for the post. However Vitali Catan believes that the Communist Party is distorting the meaning of Art.80 of the Constitution on which they are relying. “Indeed, the formulation 'two consecutive terms' contained in Article 80, which limits the number of terms one is allowed to hold, can produce confusion. But I think the intention of the legislature was to limit the number of terms to two in total, considering that this is the usual thing in the compared jurisprudence. The word 'consecutive' was inserted to highlight that terms can be successive and, thus, the person who holds the post of president may stand for re-election even from the post of caretaker president”, explains the expert. Another reason why Voronin cannot run for a third term is that there hasn't been an interruption between his last term and the term of next president. Vitali Catana says that although Mihai Ghimpu serves as head of state (under Article 91), the speaker is the holder of a mandate granted by Parliament under articles 78, 79 and 80, and doesn't cease to be the head of the legislature. “Bearing in mind that after Vladimir Voronin's stepping down there has been no other presidential term, it cannot be stated that there has been an interruption between his term and the term that will be won by the next president”, said Vitali Catana. Catan also dismissed the theory that previous terms should not be counted once the way of electing the president is changed.