Top oligarch leaves Moldova after party cedes power

CHISINAU: An oligarch who leads Moldova´s Democratic Party has left the country after the group ceded power to a new coalition government, but the party on Saturday rejected reports of his “disappearance”. An alliance of pro-Russian and pro-European lawmakers this week forced the party headed by Vlad Plahotniuc to step aside after a long-running political crisis in the former Soviet republic. “Regarding speculation in the media about the so-called disappearance of the head of the Democratic Party... Plahotniuc has left the country for a few days to be with his family,” the party´s press service said in a statement. Maia Sandu, the head of the coalition government, said Saturday Plahotniuc would be “answerable before the law” and accused him of various crimes including usurping power. The pro-Russian Socialist Party and pro-European ACUM agreed last weekend to work together in government, despite different views in many areas, to end the oligarch´s influence. Lawmakers from the coalition — which was backed in the power stand-off by the EU, US and Russia — said Moldova was “wallowing in corruption” and “captive” to oligarchs. One of the poorest nations in Europe, Moldova was part of Romania before it became a Soviet republic and later independent. It contains a Russian-backed breakaway region called Transnistria.