IPN interview with the president of the Liberal Democratic Party Viorel Cibotaru on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of the declaration of Independence
---

– What is the most important accomplishment over the 27 years of Independence in your opinion and why? What didn’t we manage to obtain as a state during these years?

– The day the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Moldova was adopted was that when the people obtained the capacity to decide what language they speak, how to organize the administration, how to keep and develop the common character of the national identity and to create their destiny themselves. This is my understanding of the vote given in Parliament on August 27, 1991 and these feelings I experienced myself while being in the central square of Chisinau together with tens of thousands of people. Historically, the obtaining by the Republic of Moldova of independence from the Soviet Union meant the most important act in our national renaissance, in the rebuilding of the whole way of life. It was thus an epochal, revolutionary event projected onto a future of which we didn’t dream. The feeling of national pride, the freedom and exit to a new world, of modern civilization, are the most important accomplishment of this Declaration. 

– What did the Independence for citizen Viorel Cibotaru and his family mean?

– I think it meant a lot. To me it offered another professional and civic perspective and made me live a life and events that I couldn’t have imagined if the totalitarian regime of the Soviet past had been kept. I regret nothing of my past, my youth and have nothing to reproach myself for publicly. But since 1991 we have lived another life, made another history and built another future, for sure.

– How will the 28th, eventually, the 29th and 30th anniversaries of the declaration of Independence differ from the current anniversary?

– To my regret, this year we do not really have reasons to relish our living and to celebrate this day as we should. Amid an acute political crisis, democratic backsliding, endemic political corruption, massive migration of active citizens abroad, large-scale thefts of state and banking funds, capture of almost all the state institutions in the interests of one person and its acolytes, there is not too much place left for joy and optimism.

–Why should a citizen of the Republic of Moldova feel proud to be a citizen of this state?

– Even if hundreds of thousands of Moldovans went to live abroad, they will anyway have only one Homeland  - here, where they were born and where they made the first steps and knew what parenteral love is. Today we have too many people who are disappointed in the government or the political class, but no one has reasons not to love and not to be proud of our country.

Elena Nistor, IPN

Note: IPN News Agency conducted ‘mirror’ interviews (with similar questions) with representatives of the government and opposition leaders.

Maia Sandu: Independence meant first and foremost recovery of national values. IPN interview