Moldova's parliament brought a three-year-long constitutional crisis to an end on Friday by electing a former judge as the country's president.

The former Soviet republic's legislature chose lawyer Nikolai Timofti, a candidate put forward by the country's centrist ruling coalition, DPA reported.

Timofti, who is 63, received 62 votes in favour in the 101-seat parliament to become the country's fourth president.

The opposition Communists had since 2009 repeatedly blocked attempts by the ruling coalition to gather sufficient votes to elect a president. But in recent weeks three Communist members of parliament defected to the ruling coalition.

"Our national idea should be European integration," Timofti said in a speech to parliament after his election. "I will do everything in my power so that, along with the government and the legislature, we can obtain results."

"People need to see the changes not just in the laws, but in their own lives," he said in comments reported by Interfax news agency.

According to Moldovan news reports, Timofti's candidacy represented a compromise between the ruling coalition and the defecting Communists, who said they would only support a president with no major party affiliation.

Timofti served for 36 years as a judge in the Soviet and Moldovan court systems until being removed when the Communist party came to power in Moldova in 2001, the Infotag news agency reported.

"I have agreed to take the post of president, because today my country needs it. But I will not be involved in politics ... I want to be president for all citizens, and to unite the country," he said.

The power vacuum had produced years of political deadlock, with the ruling coalition commanding enough votes to push through legislation in parliament, but no one to formally sign the bills into law.

Sergei Syrbu, a Communist spokesman, called Timofti's election "illegitimate" and farcical, while party activists planned to protest in the Moldovan capital Chisinau later in the day.

"We do not recognize this president, he was elected by an illegal parliament," Syrbu said.

Moldova is by most estimates Europe's poorest state. Its impoverished economy depends on cash transfers from Moldovans working - often illegally - in the European Union, particularly in Portugal and Italy.

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