The Dodon train has already left. A noose of early deadlines hangs over Moldova
The pro-Western President of Moldova, Maia Sandu, is one step closer to victory over Igor Dodon and the socialists. The second attempt to approve the government failed in parliament. Now Sandu can go for the dissolution of parliament and early elections, in which her PAS party has a great chance of winning.
Everything is according to plan... the president
Over the past three months, the parliament of the Republic of Moldova has failed two attempts to elect a new government. Both candidates for the position of Prime Minister were nominated by President Maia Sandu. The parliamentary majority represented by the PSRM deputies and the SOR faction had their own candidates, whom Sandu refused to nominate under various pretexts. Under these conditions, they failed both attempts to vote for presidential candidates and, as Sandu had hoped, created all the necessary preconditions for the dissolution of the legislative body.
Failed prime minister number two, deputy Igor Grosu, criticized the deputies of the parliamentary coalition, who left the meeting without hearing the program of the Grosu government and without voting for it.
“Today we received further confirmation that this parliament does not think about the country or the people. We need to mobilize all efforts to overcome the pandemic crisis and organize early elections so that citizens clear this parliament of thieves and robbers,” Grosu said.
Igor Gosu.
Maia Sandu, who declared early elections her primary goal for the presidency, immediately initiated new consultations with parliamentary factions. The President wants to discuss with the deputies the timing of the dissolution of parliament and the appointment of early parliamentary elections.
PSRM has its own game
The socialists, Igor Dodon and Ilan Shor have their own plans. They do not want early elections, as they rightly fear that after the elections their parties will cease to be a parliamentary majority. All credible polls show a catastrophic decline in trust both in the Socialist Party, which calls itself pro-Russian, and in the party of the oligarch Ilan Shor, hiding in Israel.
Socialist leader Igor Dodon hides his fear of early elections under the fear that voting will cause an outbreak of coronavirus infection.
“I will do everything possible to prevent anyone from going to elections over corpses in order to increase the number of mandates in parliament,” Dodon said the day before on one of the TV channels.
To prevent the dissolution of parliament, the socialists sent a new request to the Constitutional Court. They ask that the nomination of Gavrilitsa (Sandu's first candidate) be declared invalid and thus the previous failed attempt be annulled. Lawyers of the Party of Socialists claim that President Maia Sandu published the decree on the nomination of Natalia Gavrilitsa retroactively, after she spoke in parliament to deputies and did not receive a single vote of support from them. The decree on the nomination of Gavrilitsa was signed by the President on January 27, and it was published in the Official Monitor only on February 26.
“The decree was published in the Official Monitor after the fact, and this affects its constitutionality,” PSRM lawyers note. On this basis, they ask the Constitutional Court to give parliament one more try to elect a government.
Socialists and SOR deputies also have a candidate for the post of head of government - Ambassador of the Republic of Moldova to Russia Vladimir Golovatyuk.
Vladimir Golovatyuk.
On Friday, the PSRM-SOR coalition will remind Maia Sandu at consultations that they have their own candidate and completely disagree with her decision to dissolve parliament.
The train left
Convincing both Sandu and the Constitutional Court that there are no circumstances for the dissolution of parliament will not be easy. The president complied with all the necessary legal circumstances. Firstly, on March 23, 90 days have passed since the resignation of the Chicu government. And, according to Art. 85 (1) of the Constitution, if the parliament does not form a new government after 3 months, the President of Moldova, after consultations with parliamentary factions, has the right to appeal to the Constitutional Court and dissolve the parliament.
Constitutional expert Alexandru Arsenie notes that the Constitutional Court has, in fact, already spoken out about the nomination of Gavrilitsa, and “not a single court considers the same issue twice.”
In addition, Sandu’s decree on the approval of Gavrilitsa as a candidate for prime minister states that it came into force from the moment it was signed.
Also, according to Arseniy, all attempts to nominate candidates for prime minister have been exhausted. He claims that deputies no longer have a chance to nominate Vladimir Golovatyuk as prime minister, as the socialists propose.
"The train left. Art. 85 of the Constitution says very clearly that after the second attempt to approve the government, all conditions were created for the dissolution of parliament, especially since three months have passed,” the expert said.
English version :: Read in English Dodon's train has already left. Moldova is facing the noose of early releases.