Moldovan president postpones decision to appoint candidate for premier office

16:49 | 18.12.2015 Category: Political

Chisinau, 18 December /MOLDPRES/ - The decision on appointing a candidate for the office of prime minister has been postponed for 21 December. President Nicolae Timofti made statements to this effect after a new round of consultations with the leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party (PLDM), Democratic Party (PDM) and Liberal Party (PL).

Following one hour of discussions, the head of state said the parties' leaders had asked for adjourning the taking of a decision. "New consultations are to be held on next Monday afternoon, the term allows us doing this, as the deadline is 29 January," Timofti.

The PLDM acting leader, Valeriu Strelet, said discussions were to take place on the days to come as well, to find a decision on the formula of appointing the prime minister. "We still need time to identify the mechanism of appointment. We reiterated that the shortest way is that this candidate not be party member. We are to discuss again, as the Democrats presently claim that they have 20 mandates and there is a situation that should be analysed," Strelet said.

PDM leader Marian Lupu said the discussions remained blocked at the same level: the mechanism of appointing the prime minister and the areas of political responsibility. "We are speaking about a coalition government, and for this reason, we reiterated our stance and failed to reach any consensus," Lupu said.

Liberals' leader Mihai Ghimpu was laconic, yet he showed optimism that a government would be sworn in.

"I am disappointed that, against a background of a deep crisis, we afford losing time in a chatter to find a formula of appointing the prime minister," the leader of the People's Party of Moldova, Iurie Leanca, has said.

In the last years of governance, the candidate for the post of prime minister used to be put forward by the party with most MP seats. Presently, PLDM and PDM have the same number of lawmaker mandates - 19 each, PL is represented by 13 MPs in parliament and the group led by Iurie Leanca is made up of three lawmakers.

(Reporter A. Zara, editor A. Raileanu)

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