Last Sunday a meeting which turned into a continuous protest started in the capital of Moldova. Its participants and initiators are the non-party civil platform ‘Dignity and Truth.’ They demand the resignation of the President, the government, the General Prosecutor, and the holding of early elections to the parliament, as well as punishments for the people who are responsible for the disappearance of $1 billion from Moldova’s banks.
Alexey Martynov, Director of the Institute of the Newest States, explains that the initiators of the protest in Chisinau are the same activists who actively called on everyone to vote for those political forces that are now in power. “They are absolutely dissatisfied with the government’s work and all those in authority in general over the past year. Their hopes, their aspirations, their expectations have not been met. Moldova probably remains the poorest country in Europe. None of the reforms mentioned a year ago during the election campaign have been started yet,” the expert believes.
According to him, “a police-oligarchical regime has been established today in Moldova under the banner of 'the European path of Moldova'."
Nevertheless, according to Martyniv, this protest is not only against the course, but also against the people who now occupy this or that chair, who state that it is necessary to move closer to Russia, while on the other hand, that it is necessary to deepen relations with the EU, they have led to the consequences that we see today. “This is demagoguery. There is no real cause in these words,” the expert says.
The Prime Minister of Moldova, Valeriu Strelet, held a meeting with representatives of a contact group which was formed by the participants of the protests in Chisinau. “It will soon be a year since the parliamentary elections were held, more than 9 months he has been prime minister, there has not been any meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission until now. Although Moscow constantly gives signals that the elections were held, that we must meet somehow to discuss everything, we have a lot of accumulated problems, and they are not political, there are problems with the economy, with turnover, with the movement of people, with our citizens in the Transdniestrian region. There are a lot of problems. However, all this is delayed.There is no real business there,” Martynov says.
According to him, the same applies to the relations between Moldova and the European institutions: “The same demagoguery, conversations, but people who want to live here and now. Moldova is a country of migrant workers, where the capable population (20-45-year old) is on earnings. If the Russian vector in some way does not work, and after the well-known Ukrainian events it is obvious to Moldovans, they voted for the European vector. But they do not vote for ideology, they want a normal human life today. And people who are used to power need to work in this direction rather than fill their own pockets.”
