CHISINAU, July 31 (RIA Novosti) - Moldova's dominant Communist Party won this week's general election, but opposition parties will have a majority of seats in the new parliament, according to the latest results.

The country's top election official Eugeniu Stirbu said that with 100% of votes counted, preliminary results showed the Communists with 44.7% of the vote.

The opposition Liberal Democratic Party received 16.6% of the vote, the Liberal Party 14.7%, the Democratic Party 12.5%, and the Our Moldova alliance 7.3%.

The four parties will have a total of 53 seats in the 101-member legislature and could form a government and elect a parliamentary speaker if they manage to agree a coalition. But they fall eight votes short of the 61 needed to elect the president in the former Soviet republic.

The Communists, although still the largest party, won 48 seats, down from the 60 seats they received in the April election, which triggered violent protests in the capital, Chisinau.

The Communists were apparently hurt by the defection of former parliament speaker Marian Lupu to the Democratic Party, which did not pass the threshold to receive seats in the previous parliament but will have 13 in the new assembly.

That would be enough to elect a president in tandem with the Communists, but Lupu has ruled out joining his former colleagues in a two-party coalition.

The early poll was called after parliament had failed several times to elect a president as the opposition blocked a candidate proposed by Communist President Vladimir Voronin, who is required to step down after two consecutive terms in office.