CHISINAU, January 13. /TASS/. Moldova’s President Nicolae Timofti begins consultations with the parliament elected last December on a candidate for the position of Prime Minister.
“In line with Article 98 of the Constitution, the President is initiating consultations of parliamentary caucuses on nomination of a candidate of the prime-ministerial position,” the presidential press service said on Monday night.
The first round of consultations is to be held with the Socialist Party that has the largest caucus in parliament.
The parliamentary election that was held on November 30 practically preserved the same layout of political forces, as the parties making up the coalition - the Liberal Democrats, the Democrats and the Liberals - received 55 seats altogether in the 101-seat parliament.
In December 2014, they began the talks on forming a new cabinet and parliamentary leadership. The Socialist Party, which received 25 mandates, said it would not cooperate with the authorities.
“The socialists will not take part in the ruling pro-European coalition and will remain an opposition party,” its leader Igor Dodon said. “We demand denunciation of the agreement on association with the EU signed by the government and a national referendum on the country’s foreign policy course.”
“We’ll be pressing for early elections with the aid of all the legitimate methods,” he told TASS.
On the face of his statements, the consultations among the three pro-European parties failed to bring about any conclusive results. The newly elected parliament had its first session on December 29, only to announce the formation of party caucuses.
- Backers, critics of European integration to clash in Moldova’s parliamentary election
- Moldova's Communist Party launches court action to declare Nov 30 election null and void
- Moldova should expand cooperation with Russia — Socialist Party leader
- Parliamentary elections in Moldova meet international standards — OSCE monitors
- Parliamentary elections in Moldova
- Moldova greets Poroshenko with protests
- More Moldovans in favour of joining Customs Union than EU — poll
Mihai Ghimpu, the leader of the Liberal Party said the distribution of the country’s three leading posts - the prime minister, the parliament speaker, and the president - remained the stumbling block. He said the Liberals had aspirations for the presidential post, as the president of Moldova is elected by parliament, not by direct popular vote.
The powers of the incumbent President, Nicolae Timofti, expire in March 2016.
Along with this, the Liberal Democrats would like to retain the prime-ministerial position for themselves while the Democrats will be content with the speaker’s position.
Analysts say the future configuration of state power in Moldova will depend in many ways on the choice that will be made by the Democrats and the Liberal Democrats, whose leaders are holding talks on the future state power composition with both Liberals and the Communists, who have 21 mandates while staying in the opposition.
The Communists’ leader, former President Vladimir Voronin made it clear the Communists expected to get some key posts in governmental agencies so as to be able to cooperate in parliament fruitfully.
These could be the positions of a deputy speaker of parliament, the chairman of the Accounting Chamber, and the chairman of the Central Election Commission or the chairman of Coordination Council for Broadcasting.
Moldovan legislation says that the president nominates the candidate for prime minister after consultations with parliamentary caucused. Once he does it, the candidate will have to ask the members of parliament to have a vote of confidence in the cabinet’s composition and program of action.
If the members of parliament turn down the candidate for prime minister proposed by the Prime Minister, the President will dissolve the parliament then and call an early presidential election.