Mariana Durleșteanu, the candidate promoted by the Shor and the Socialist Party for the prime minister position, announced on Tuesday, March 16, that she is withdrawing her candidacy. She announced her withdrawal while the Socialist deputies were in consultations with president Maia Sandu.

“I took note of Mariana Durleșteanu’s decision to withdraw her candidacy for prime minister. Given that there is no candidate with a parliamentary majority, I decided to nominate Igor Grosu as prime minister and asked the nominee to prepare the program and form a team to go to Parliament,” said Maia Sandu after consultations.

President Maia Sandu met with all the parliamentary factions. The Shor Party representatives said that the discussion with the president was very constructed and that their party promotes Durleșteanu’s candidacy.

“We are very happy with this dialogue. The dialogue was very constructive. We hope that our position would be taken into account and will see if president Sandu will promote Marina Durleșteanu’s candidacy.”

The leader of the parliamentary faction of Pro Moldova claims that only through a reach of consensus the crisis could be overcome.

“We continue to believe that if we are to reach early elections, which we see as a change in the political class, we must do it in an orderly manner. We are in a pandemic crisis, the country must be governed and must be governed well until then. I reiterated to the President that only through dialogue can we reach a consensus.”

The Democratic Party leader Pavel Filip stated that the factions could vote for a government to solve the financial problems and after that to go with the Parliament’s dissolution.

“We can identify a compromise to vote for a government, to take the necessary decisions, and to unblock external assistance. Subsequently, in three months, Parliament does not meet, does not adopt laws, and instruments are created for the dissolution of Parliament. In the best case, we could meet within 6 months until the early parliamentary elections.”

The deputies of the Dignity and Truth Party claim that during the consultations, they presented and submitted a roadmap in the context of the current political crisis.

“We proposed a roadmap and discussed this roadmap. This government must have 3-4 main objectives. Subsequently, we could organize early elections. We now have no choice between the good or the very good. We have a choice between bad, very bad, and extremely bad,” Slusari declared.

Socialist leader Igor Dodon claims that he had a constructive dialogue with President Maia Sandu. At the same time, he mentioned that the early parliamentary elections cannot be organized in the near period because of the epidemiological situation.