"75 votes for Voronin against mere one was quite a logical outcome of preceding developments," says Professor Yuri Laryushin, prominent Moldovan political expert.
"Communists nominated Voronin for presidency, and they did not intend to advance another hopeful. They had to do so only after opposition flatly refused to make its own nomination. The Moldovan law rules out an election with no alternatives. That was why Communists appointed another candidate-Georgi Duca, President of the Moldovan Academy of Sciences. That was a sheer formal step, but it was indispensable.
"That was not the main reason for Voronin's victory. The Communist leader owed it chiefly to his popularity with close on a half of the Moldovan electorate. Then, the opposition is weak and has no charismatic leader, just as it has no shared interests and ideas.
"All that triggered off a chain reaction of opposition sympathizers' disappointment. The alarm first sounded as a recent parliamentary poll brought opposition far fewer seats than expected, so confusion started in its ranks."
The opposition bloc saw its final collapse after Serafim Urecheanu, its leader and Chisinau mayor, "U-turned his mottos from pro-Russian to radical anti-Russian just the day before parliament was to elect president".
The result was quite predictable-the Democratic Moldova parliamentary group shrank from 34 to 23 a few days before the presidential election, Professor Laryushin went on.
Parliamentarians who left the Democratic group joined Christian Democrats to add another 19 votes to Mr. Voronin's supporters. The Communist group stayed cemented, whatever split the opposition might have expected for it.
