PSRM: President of the Republic of Moldova Should Be Directly Elected by the People

The President of the Republic of Moldova must be directly elected by all citizens. This is the position expressed by the PSRM after several politicians expressed their opinion that the method of electing the head of state should be changed. "The PSRM is firm in its position expressed earlier. The President of the Republic of Moldova should be directly elected by all citizens," the PSRM statement said, cited by agora.md. At the end of last week, the honorary chairman of the Democratic Party, Dumitru Diacov, proposed, as an alternative, to abolish direct presidential elections and elect the head of state in parliament. "I am convinced that a decent election campaign will not be possible given the troubles that are yet to come. That's why I propose to discuss not postponing these elections, but returning to the presidential election by parliament," Diacov wrote on his Facebook page. The democrat deleted this post later. PDM leader Pavel Filip commented on this gesture: “I said that this was his, not the party’s, opinion. I believe that it is inappropriate to start discussions on this topic during this period.” The PDM leader did not specify whether he would support the initiative to elect the head of state by parliament. Meanwhile, head of state Igor Dodon proposed that the country should temporarily stop discussing politics. The head of state appealed to his opponents, and also referred to the presidential election to be held this fall. Dodon said that "it is not interesting for the citizens of the Republic of Moldova when the elections will be held, how we will choose, and whom we will choose." Recall that until 2016, the country's president was elected by parliament. The procedure was changed at the initiative of the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (LDPM) by the Constitutional Court’s decision. To return to the old scheme, it is necessary to amend the Constitution by approval of 2/3 of parliamentarians, i.e. 67 votes.