In Moldova, the governing Alliance for European Integration (AEI) has officially supported a proposal to directly elect the president. Infotag reports that all 53 AEI deputies have signed a legislative initiative to this end.

A constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority in parliament (or 67 votes), even more than the three-fifths required to elect a president. Given the communists hold the remaining 48 seats in parliament, their support is required for any constitutional amendment.

For their part, the communists also formally proposed their own initiative at the end of last week. They proposed a system whereby the president would remain elected by parliament, but where there would be a three-round process with the number of votes required for election being reduced each time until only a simply majority (52 votes) would be required at the third ballot.

So, there now seem to be two competing initiatives, neither of which has enough support to be adopted. It’s unclear what compromise, if any, there will be.