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Moldovan parliament to make another attempt to elect president

On the voting day they will hold a mass protest action at the parliament building demanding an early election

CHISINAU, March 16 (Itar-Tass) — Moldova’s parliament will make on Friday another attempt to elect president amid demonstrations of the opposition and supporters of the authorities. The only candidate is Chairman of the Superior Council of Magistrates of Moldova Nicolae Timofti, who has secured support of 59 deputies from the Democratic, Liberal and Liberal-Democratic parties that make part of the ruling coalition Alliance for European Integration.

According to experts, he has chances to become the fourth president of Moldova although 61 votes are needed to elect him as head of state, while opposition Communists who have 39 mandates boycott sessions of the parliament that they consider illegitimate.

On the voting day they will hold a mass protest action at the parliament building demanding an early election. At the same time, proponents of the authorities intend to hold a rally in support of Timofti. In order to avoid provocations and clashes the government has stepped up security measures.

“We must ensure normal conditions for the election of the head of state,” Prime Minister Vlad Filat explained. Communist leader Vladimir Voronin, former president of the republic, for his part dismissed media reports saying his supporters will resort to violence.

“I will not allow such things, the same way that I did not give orders that would result in bloodshed in April 2009, when an attempt of a coup d’etat was made in Chisinau”.

A chance to overcome the lingering political crisis when Moldovan deputies have failed to elect president for the third year running, emerged last autumn, when three deputies led by former Deputy Prime Minister Igor Dodon quit the Communist faction. They formed the Socialist Party group in the parliament, and the leadership of this group considered at a session on Thursday the issue of supporting Timofti.

“It was not an easy conversation, we made a decision by a majority of vote,” Dodon told Tass.

On Wednesday, Timofti held negotiations with the leaders of three parties from the ruling coalition and the group of Dodon, telling them that he supported the pro-European course of the ruling coalition and would make his first visit to Brussels.

He also spoke in favor of overcoming the lingering political crisis, promising that he would become “a good mediator between branches of the state power, in the society and in parliament”. “I hope that the opposition will also come to the conclusion that problems must be settled peacefully,” the presidential candidate said.

Timofti, who turned 64 in December, is a lawyer by education. In recent years he has occupies senior positions in the country’s judicial system. In 2010, he was elected Chairman of the Superior Council of Magistrates - a body of state authority that selects the candidates to judges and prosecutors and exercises disciplinary oversight over them.