Parliament fails in its second attempt to elect a president

AFP - Moldova's parliament failed Monday to elect a president in its second try since November, leading to a possible dissolution of the body if the political stalemate drags on in the ex-Soviet republic.

Marian Lupu, the single candidate for the presidency, won 53 out of a total 101 votes in parliament, but missed the required 61 votes after Communist lawmakers boycotted the election.

The abortive election comes less than a month after the November 10 vote which also ended in failure because of a walk-out by the Communist bloc in parliament.

In Moldova -- where the political crisis plaguing Europe's poorest nation since spring shows no signs of easing -- the president is chosen by members of parliament.

Moldova's coalition of four pro-European liberal parties won a slim majority in July parliamentary elections, ending eight years of Communist rule in the former Soviet state.

But the coalition has not yet been able to win over enough Communist votes to raise the three-fifths majority needed to elected a new president.

Under the constitution, the parliament must be dissolved and new elections called if it twice fails to elect a president.

But another constitutional limit dictates that parliament may only be dissolved once a year, barring such a measure before July 16, 2010, since the body was already dissolved in July this year in a post-election deadlock.

Amid the legal tie-up, candidate Lupu called for a national referendum to amend the country's presidential election process.

"It is necessary to change the constitution to allow for the president to be elected by a simple parliamentary majority or nationwide vote," Lupu told reporters in the capital Chisinau.

But former president and Communist Party leader Vladimir Voronin, who resigned in November, vowed his party would continue to stand firm against Lupu's proposal and candidacy.

"We will not allow this. The constitution is not something which anyone can change as they wish," he said.

The Moldovan parliament had already passed amendments to election legislation to allow a single candidate to run in the presidential polls.