Moldova looking at non-Communist rule

CHISINAU, Moldova, July 31 (UPI) -- The four opposition parties that won a slender parliamentary margin over the Communist Party in Moldova must now try to put together a coalition government.

The parties won a total of 53 seats in the election Wednesday, while the Communists took 48, the EU Observer reported.

"I urge all the political parties to engage in open and constructive dialogue in order to put in place ... a government able to tackle the economic crisis," Benita Ferrero-Waldner, external affairs commissioner for the European Union said.

The victory was a historic one, if narrow, The New York Times said. Moldova was the last of the former Soviet republics where the Communist Party hung on to power.

But the opposition groups' main common ground is support for stronger ties between Moldova and Western Europe, The New York Times said.

Landlocked Moldova, wedged between Romania and Ukraine, is the poorest country in Europe. President Vladimir Voronin tried in campaigning to appeal to voters nostalgic for the Soviet era.

"It is difficult to predict how the future will play out," Oazu Nantoi, the deputy chairman of the Democratic Party, told the Times. "But the first step has been taken: Voronin's monopoly on power has been broken."