Moldovan government blackmailing the president

The government of Moldova can boycott meetings of the High Security Council, the chair of the Moldovan parliament Andrian Candu has announced.

The reason for the statement is that a day before, after the chair of the parliament approved Eugen Sturza’s candidature for the post of the country’s defense minister, President Igor Dodon called the appointment illegitimate. Dodon might ban Sturza from meetings of the council.

“I do not recognize him as defense minister, he will not be a member of High Security Council. The president of Moldova as the commander-in-chief does not accept him as the defense minister. His legitimacy is void,” Dodon said.

“The defense minister is officially a member of the High Security Council. How it will look like without the defense minister? If Sturza is not accepted by the president, then the chair of the parliament, prime minister, interior minister and heads of other governmental institutions will not attend meetings of the council,” Candu said.

Until now, Igor Dodon convoke the council twice. The first one was not attended by Prime Minister Pavel Filip and Andrian Candu, as they were both in foreign trips, the second one was boycotted by them and representatives of governmental and parliamentary bodies.

On October 24, the chair of the Moldovan parliament instead of Dodon signed a decree to appoint Eugen Sturza to the post of defense minister. It became possible after the Constitutional Court allowed transferring the president’s powers to appoint the minister.

Dodon twice turned back the candidature, and the Constitutional Court treated it as the president’s evasion of his duties.

The Moldovan president said that Sturza was “too far from the army.”

“Many do not know that he was a kind of born in the army. His father is a military manю when we were playing toy cars in the sandbox, he was playing among tanks,” Andrian Candu responded.

The Moldovan president believes that appointment of Eugen Sturza is “going behind the frameworks of political legitimacy.”