MOLDOVA’S "UNNATURAL ALLIANCE" FRUSTRATES ANOTHER REFORM ACT.

Publication: Monitor Volume: 3 Issue: 141

The Moldovan parliament last week turned down a draft law that would have established a Human Rights Center as an Ombudsman-type institution. Socialists and allied leftist groups disliked the proposed measure mainly because it had been recommended by Western representatives in the Council of Europe and other European institutions. The Popular Front and other "rightists" opposed it because it envisaged, inter alia, protection of ethnic minority rights. (Monitor interviews, July 21) Moldova’s leftists and rightists have tended recently to combine in their efforts to block reforms variously initiated by President Petru Lucinschi, his parliamentary supporters, or the cabinet of ministers. (See Monitor, July 18) The reformers currently face what they have dubbed an "unnatural alliance" whose left-wing and right-wing components, each for its own reasons, end up voting together against reform bills in parliament.

Tajik Refugee Repatriation, Prisoner Exchange Begin.