Higher electoral threshold contributes to a more consolidated Opposition, head of state says

The rise in the electoral threshold from 4% to 6% contributes to a more consolidated Opposition, considers President Vladimir Voronin. The head of state, who is also president of the Communist Party (PCRM), made the statement at a news conference on July 23, Info-Prim Neo reports. The president considers that the Opposition parties started to join forces because they failed in the previous electoral battles. “Moldova Democratica was the first to fall apart, followed by the Moldova Noastra Alliance Party and the Democratic Party,” the president stated. He said that the Opposition’s initiative to join forces is not antidemocratic, but he criticized the fact that some of the parties “discredit Moldova’s image for the sake of electoral goals”. Vladimir Voronin expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that some of the politicians, especially the president of the Democratic Party of Moldova, Dumitru Diacov, are against the electoral threshold of 6%. He said that Dumitru Diacov, alongside Mircea Snegur, insistently tried to convince him, when PCRM was in the Opposition, to vote for raising the electoral threshold to 6% so as to hinder the Christian Democratic People’s Party (PPCD) from entering the Parliament. Asked if PCRM and PPCD entered into a political partnership, Vladimir Voronin said the partnership between them is not like that between the Social Democratic Party and the Democratic Party for instance. He made it clear that PCRM and PPCD could establish such a partnership in the future. He expressed his confidence that if a partnership is created, the PPCD leader Iurie Rosca will honor all the commitments assumed, as he did when voting for the president on July 4, 2005. “For this, Iurie Rosca is attacked and criticized, but he does not deserve it,” the head of state said. In general, the president commended only the PPCD leader. “Iurie Rosca is first of all a personality, a reliable person and a man of good faith. He always heads forward and knows what he wants,” Vladimir Voronin said. According to the president, contrary to opinion polls, Iurie Rosca’s rating is higher than that of the president of the Moldova Noastra Alliance Party, Serafim Urecheanu by at least 2 percentage points, being 9-10%. Asked to comment on the joint statement of the representatives of the EU member states, which called on the authorities to review the electoral legislation, Vladimir Voronin said that neither the Presidential Office, nor the Government or the Parliament have received the statement. “I cannot comment on something I did not see and read,” the head of state said. The Parliament this April raised the minimum threshold for entering the Parliament for a party or social-political organization from 4% to 6%. Earlier, in 2005, the Parliament decreased the threshold from 6% to 4%, at the recommendation of the Council of Europe, OSCE, the European Parliament and international observers supervising the election campaign.