Ahto Lobjakas, RFE/RL, July 30, 2009 Followers of the Moldovan elections can be forgiven for feeling the results have been something of an anticlimax.
Pronounced acceptable though faulty by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the poll has produced no closure to the country's tectonic political divisions. With 53 seats in the parliament, the anti-communist front of four parties -- the Liberals, Liberal Democrats, the Our Moldova Alliance, and the Democrats -- can form a government, but it falls eight votes short of being able to elect the president. In an overwhelmingly presidential political system, this could prove a fatal shortfall.
There appears to be nothing to prevent President Vladimir Voronin from hanging onto his post and forcing another round of elections next year. With his considerable administrative and media resources, he might think that he could go into new elections from a position of strength after more months of deadlock with an opposition-controlled cabinet.
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