The recent reshuffle that saw six Cabinet members replaced “smells like totalitarian, Soviet mold”, said the political pundit Boris Shapovalov during a talk-show on NTV Moldova.
Shapovalov said that the manner in which the leader of the governing party would take the floor to announce a shake-up echoed the Soviet era. “In a democratic country, in the 21st century, a party in fact governs the entire country, with its leader coming forward and announcing who takes this or that ministerial seat. I think this is utterly undemocratic. We have a state body called Parliament. It’s its representative who should come forward and make such announcements, and only after the parliamentary groups have consulted, as required by the Constitution”.
The political expert Vitalie Andrievschi, however, finds nothing wrong in a party leader that controls the parliamentary majority making such announcements, given that it’s up to the parliamentary majority to appoint Cabinet members. Andrievschi has told the same talk-show he knows that the replacement of some ministers was discussed in “most parliamentary groups”. He further defended the move, saying the Government in the current line-up has fulfilled its main objective set in 2016, namely economic growth, and now the Government needs “something new”.
On Tuesday, Democratic Party president Vladimir Plahotniuc announced that six Cabinet members were going to be replaced – the Reintegration Deputy Minister, and the ministers of Economy, Health&Social Protection, Agriculture&Environment, Foreign Affairs, and Justice. Also, a new position of Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration was added to the line-up.
