Govt. wants President to be member of political party

The Government did not give its endorsement to the bill of a group of MPs to modify article 81 of the Moldovan Constitution, Info-Prim Neo reports. The draft proposes that the President of the country shall renounce his position of a political party leader. The parliamentarians argue that the President pursues to ensure the stability and the balance of social-political processes in the state, to preserve his/her capacity of being objective and unbiased in relation to any factors in the political process, to any political party or organization. But, being a party member, he/she may be tempted to get partially involved in the political dialogue. The authors of the bill bring about examples from the experience of other countries. The Government also resorts to the international experience in its note, but remarks however that the issue of the incompatibility between the capacity of a country and the belonging to a certain party cannot be treated univocally. Some states as Romania, Hungary, Albania, Kazakhstan opted to constitutionally consecrate the incompatibility between the presidential position and the capacity of member of a political party, some others do not have any interdiction in the Supreme Law concerning this matter, Moldova being among them. The note reads that articles 1 and 5 of the Moldovan Constitution represent the ground of building a state of law, by establishing a democratic, pluralist governing system, by eliminating the ideological dogmas and promoting the genuine values of the humankind. The reason brought about by the MPs that the President shall not be a party member restricts the Constitutional rights to assembly in parties, to participate in their activity, the Government states. The Government also makes reference to the decision of the Constitutional Court of April 3, 2008, according to which “no legal revision may be made if it pursues restricting the fundamental rights and freedoms of the citizens or their guarantees.” Recently, the Corruption Analysis and Prevention Center (CAPC) gave its expertise to the draft law mentioned, saying it was welcome. “If adopted, it will ensure the depoliticizing of the supreme position in the state and would thus contribute to prevent and counter corruption, which is more manifest and cannot be considerably reduced namely on conditions of major political-administrative domination,” the CAPC experts found. Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin is also the leader of the Communists Party, now ruling the country.