CHISINAU -- Moldova's acting President Mihai Ghimpu has warned the four-party ruling Alliance for European Integration (AIE) coalition that it must put an end to infighting if it wants to win the upcoming parliamentary elections, RFE/RL's Moldovan Service reports.
AIE leaders have been bickering over the future of the alliance, especially after Prime Minister Vlad Filat said he might run for president and invited other leaders to do the same.
Filat's statement was seen as violating an earlier alliance agreement to put forward a joint presidential candidate.
In an interview with RFE/RL's Moldovan Service on August 18, Ghimpu, who heads the coalition's Liberal Party, said the alliance had a duty to continue reforms.
He said the AIE was responsible not only to its voters, but also to the European Union, which he said had "helped [the AIE] govern."
Asked if Russia is interested in breaking up Moldova's pro-Western government, Ghimpu said, "Of course it is, and how!" He said Moscow still thought it could dictate to Moldova what decisions it should make.
Ghimpu, who is pro-Romanian, infuriated Moscow almost two months ago when he signed a decree designating June 28 the Day of Soviet Occupation, in commemoration of the 1940 occupation of what is now Moldova by Soviet troops.
Russia and pro-Russian Moldovans refer to that event as a "liberation."
The Moldovan Constitutional Court has since annulled Ghimpu's decree.
Russia nonetheless imposed a near total ban on imports of Moldovan wine.