President Nicolae Timofti rejected the request to dismiss Anatol Salaru from the post of minister of defense. Contacted by IPN, Ana Samson, the President’s senior adviser on public relations, said the request was rejected because it wasn’t sufficiently justified.

The minister reacted shortly after this decision was taken. “I thank President Timofti for his recognition for my work as a minister of defense,” Anatol Salaru wrote on a social networking site.

The initiative to dismiss Anatol Salaru was put forward by the Liberal leader Mihai Ghimpu, who announced that the party withdrew its political support for Minister Salaru. According to Ghimpu, Anatol Salaru tried to corrupt a number of Liberal MPs in an attempt to destroy the Liberal Party from inside.

For his part, Anatol Salaru said it is about revenge taken by Ghimpu after he proposed electing a new chairman of the party. After a meeting of the Liberal Party’s National Council on December 17, Salaru announced that he resigned from the post of first deputy chairman of the party.