PSL seeks reaction to President’s statements regarding illicit political and media financing from Opposition parties and international organisations

The Opposition parties and organisations that monitor the democratisation process, first of all the Council of Europe, should react to the President Vladimir Voronin’s resent statements that the Security and Information Service (SIS) should combat the illegal party and mass media financing, including from abroad, the leader of the Social Liberal Party (PSL), Oleg Serebrian, said at a news conference held at Info-Prim Neo on February 4. It is evident that any security service aims to ensure the national security, to deal with possible interferences from outside and financing of political forces that could endanger the national security, but we must draw attention to the way in which these statements were made, to the timeframe (before the election campaign, immediately after the change of the management, when one of the former presidential advisers was named as head of the service), Serebrian said. PSL considers that SIS becomes an electoral instrument, while the service’s director Artur Resetnicov will be the unofficial head of the election campaign of PCRM for the 2009 elections. The disobedient political parties that will hinder PCRM and will not be willing to cooperate will be the first to be attacked, Serebrian said, mentioning the Moldova Noastra Alliance and the Democratic Party. The party’s accounts will be in the spotlight, he said. It is clear that a large part of the financial operations to which the parties resort do not pass through bank accounts. It is a bad tradition, but it derives from the poor legislation on the financing of political parties. SIS knows this and, following probably certain financial flows, will make use of certain legislative provisions to remove important opponents from the electoral race. It is very easy to find drawbacks in the activity of a political party, including owing to the imperfectness of the legislation, Serebrian said. He also said that the nervousness of PCRM is due to the pour results at the local general elections in 2007 and to the fact that the Opposition managed to form majority groups in the largest part of the district councils, despite difficulties. Serebrian said he will call on the leaders of the Opposition parties, first of all from the Parliament, to sign a joint statement to notify the Council of Europe of this case. At the meeting of the SIS Board on January 31, Vladimir Voronin said that the Security and Information Service has the task to combat illegal political and media financing, including from abroad. The Opposition parties play an important part in a democratic society, but only in the circumstances in which their activity is not directed against the state, Vladimir Voronin said. At the same time, the President stressed that the Service must not get involved in political processes, but fulfil its duties in strict compliance with the law, says the communiqué from the presidential press service published by Info-Prim Neo in detail on February 1. Later, IPN published the opinions of political leaders and heads of media nongovernmental organizations about this subject.