I was just searching for news, and the latest confirmation of the opposition’s attempt to block the parliament’s presidential election is showing.

CHISINAU. March 12 (Interfax) – Members of the opposition Democratic Moldova Bloc (BDM) who have been elected to parliament made written obligations on Saturday to boycott the election by the new legislature of the next Moldovan president.
…
The BDM deputies, in explaining in a statement their planned boycott, cited what they called a need for “the decommunization of the country and the development of Moldova along the path of democracy and European integration.”

But not all the BDM deputies signed the document as some of them were ill and others were abroad.

Meanwhile, observers in Chisinau said the Communists had begun intensive talks with some of the opposition deputies seeking to persuade them to vote for incumbent president Vladimir Voronin when he runs for a second term.

Those deputies might be promised posts in the leadership of the new parliament or in the new government in return, observers said.

The Democratic Moldova Bloc is pretty polar to the communists, so they’ll be much harder to sway than the Christian Democrats. For my commentary on that, go here.

I just received an email from my new correspondent in Moldova (Hat tip: Rudolph Carrera, who hooked me up) who is relaying to me voting statistics. The email has been edited for presentation. Check it out:

Dear Robert,
It’s an honor to point out the pros and cons of the election results from Moldova, and of course I have a contract here as an expert on transparecy and democracy. I would like to say that the communists have remained the major force in parlament, however exit polls show they were sustained 65 % by poor country peasants over 60 years old. The opposition Moldova Democrats have bolstered their support to obtain important gains in parliament, and manifest the right to have the Presidential position as did the communist party. The Christian Democrats won more seats in parlament too but are unqualified as a candidate for president because they hold too few seats. I do not know how many seats are needed to have a candidate from any given party up for the presidential appointment, but I can ask other experts.

This means that if the democratic forces are healthy and ready for an examination of the transfer of authority, then there will be no doubt a run off and the elections will be re-run after two efforts to obtain enough votes for parliament to appoint a President.

I can look into finding other percentage facts about the electoral body in the general population.
I also know that one in five people voted for the Christian Democrats, and they were the youngest group of voters. The majority of people living in Chisinau voted against the communist party.

So why are the communists a dying breed? Well, besides historically being losers with economics and losers in the Cold War, their main constituents are also dying. For this little exercise, I will use the trustyCIA Factbook.

My correspondent says that 65% of their sustenance was gained through the votes of poor, agrarian peasants over the age of 60. In 2004, 10% of the population was 65 years or older, amounting to 456,410 potential voters. The life expectancy for a male is also about 61 years old, and for a female about 69 years old. This, in itself, doesn’t look very good for the communists as the majority of their core constituency is bound to die off within the next decade.

He also notes that the democratic blocs received the majority of the young vote, and that those in the capital of Chisinau voted against the communists as well. To add insult to injury, so did the majority of Moldovans living abroad working for a better life economically.

That the communists are dying out in terms of age and economic philosophy becomes only more apparent when comparing election statistics from 2001 to 2005. In 2001, they received 50% of the vote and had 71 seats in parliament, compared to the 11 by the Christian Democrats and the 19 held by the Braghis Alliance Electoral Bloc. Now the seats held by democratic parties has gone up to 45 while the communists have fallen to 56 and 46% of the vote.

So even if, as the article suggests, that the communists can persuade five delegates to vote in favor of Voronin, they are not long for this earth. Liberal ideas and free-market economics are trickling in through expats and the restless youth year by year, while communism’s constituency goes the same way it does.