Moldova's presidential elections, which were scheduled for today, have been postponed and leading legislators today warned that the election may be delayed until next year.
The constitutional court decided last weekend that the election should not go ahead today because only one candidate – Marian Lupu, the leader of the Democratic Party and a member of the governing coalition – had registered by 17 October. There had, however, been some possibility that agreement might be reached today on an amendment to the constitution to enable elections with a single candidate.
Instead, a parliamentary commission gave members of parliament until 11 November to resolve the impasse. If a president is not elected by 11 November, the election will not be held until next year, the head of the commission, Ion Plesca, said today.
The Communist Party, which has refused to put forward a candidate, has argued that the parliament should be dissolved if the election is not held by 11 November. That idea has been rejected by Plesca, who says that, under the constitution, the parliament cannot be dissolved twice in the same year.
Members of parliament this summer made three failed attempts to elect a president, automatically triggering a new parliamentary election. Those elections, which were held in July, dramatically changed the political landscape, with the opposition managing to remove the Communists from power and to form a majority government.
The Communists remain the largest party in the parliament, with 48 of the 100 seats.
That has led to suggestions that the Communists are refusing to put forward a candidate in a bid to force parliament to be disbanded, so that it can attempt to gain the three extra seats it needs to establish a parliamentary majority.
There are, though, signs of a split within the Communist Party. Earlier this week, a leading member of the party, Vladimir Curkan, wrote a letter to Vladimir Voronin, the party's leader, arguing that Lupu is an “experienced man who considers his steps carefully” and that the party should consider enabling him to become president.
Lupu was a member of the Communist Party and speaker of parliament until this summer.
To secure the two-thirds majority needed to become president, Lupu would have to secure eight Communist votes.
Analysts say that 12 to 15 Communists are considering supporting Lupu.
“I am not sure whether these Communist supporters of Lupu will have the courage to state their position upfront and go against their party line,” Petru Bogatu, a political analyst, told European Voice.
Nonetheless, Bogatu believes that the party may well collapse. The party has dominated Moldovan politics since 2001, when Voronin was elected president. He won re-election in 2005, but is constitutionally barred from running for a third term.
Sources within the Communist Party said that there is a “normal” process of discussion within the party and that the party is not in danger of breaking up.
In the absence of an elected president, the position is being occupied by the speaker of parliament, Mihai Ghimpu.
Ghimpu is the leader of the Liberal Party, a member of the Alliance For European Integration, the largest grouping in the government.
