Speaker could be elected at first sitting of new Parliament

CHISINAU, Moldova

The leaders of the Alliance for European Integration (AEI) said the Speaker might be elected during the first meeting of the new legislature on August 28.

“It is important that we choose the administrative bodies of the Parliament at the first sitting,” the Liberal-Democratic president Vlad Filat said on Thursday after a new meeting with the leaders of the coalition.

“We expect the MP permits. Anyway, things will go in the right direction now or later,” the PL president Mihai Ghimpu said.

The president of the AMN Serafim Urecheanu said that it is very important that the Speaker be elected at the first sitting.

On August 28, the Christians in Moldova celebrate the Assumption of Mary. Asked if this thing can serve as reason for postponing making important political decisions as it happened on the Ascension, the AEI leaders said it cannot.

“I don’t thi nk we should involve the Church in the political process. We will not do as the Communists did. A date was already set and we should hurry to form the state institutions and start work,” Vlad Filat said.

“We will form the majority now – the Democratic parties, not the Communists. The holiday is holiday, but the economic and political problems must be solved immediately,” Mihai Ghimpu said.

On May 28, at the suggestion of the PCRM and by the vote of the MPs from this party, the rerun elections of the head of state were postponed for June 3. The MPs invoked that there is no room for polemics on the Ascension.

The coalition formed by four democratic parties – the PLDM, PL, PDM and AMN – holds 53 seats of MP and can choose the Speaker, who is elected by 52 votes. The PCRM has 48 MP seats.