MOSCOW — The pro-Western president of Moldova won reelection by Parliament on Monday in a vote marking a fresh setback to Russia's policies in post-Soviet states.
President Vladimir Voronin's solid victory with 75 votes in Moldova's 101-seat legislature consolidates a shift by the country of 4.4 million people toward closer ties with the European Union and the United States. Voronin leads the Communist Party, which holds 56 seats, indicating that he won substantial support from opposition lawmakers as well as his own party.
Building close ties between Europe's poorest country and the rest of the continent is now a "consistent, irreversible and natural process," Voronin told Parliament on Monday, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported.
Moldova's Communists came to power four years ago on a pro-Moscow platform, but under Voronin's leadership the party turned away from Russia, partly because of a bitter dispute over the separatist Trans-Dniester region.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-moldova5apr05.story
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