On August 23, it is 17 years of the ousting of the Communist Party of Moldova (PCM). The decision was taken by the Parliament Presidium immediately after the Moscow putsch, Info-Prim Neo reports. PCM was founded in 1940 immediately after the Soviet troops entered Bessarabia as subdivisions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Most of the activists were brought from other parts of the USSR. Since August 1940, the party had been headed by Piotr Borodin, who was followed by Nikita Salogor, Nicolai Kovali, Leonid Brejnev, Dmitri Gladki, Zinovie Serdiuk. In May 1961, Ivan Bodiul was named as leader of the party. He administered the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic until December 30, 1981. For eight years, Semion Grossu was the First Secretary of the PCM. He was succeeded by Petru Lucinschi, who held this post between November 1989 and February 1991. The last PCM First Secretary was Grigore Eremei, who had held the post for only 7.5 months, until PCM was ousted. Immediately after the Moscow putsch, the anti-Communist MPs insisted that the party should be declared illegal, saying that PCRM pursued an anti-popular policy and usurped the power, substituted the bodies of the power and state administration, organized repressions and mass deportations, forced collectivization, planned famine, systematically and methodically devalued and destroyed the national culture, people’s customs, traditions, the national language, and falsified the history. The Parliament Presidium adopted the decision “About the Communist Party of Moldova”, which says that “under the decree on the state power, article 4 and 7 of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, PCM is banned from working on the territory of Moldova”. The next points of the Decision concern the nationalization of the PCM’s property, the taking of the nationalized property under the Government’s guardianship, transmission of all the archive materials and documents concerning the work of PCM, stopping by the National Bank of Moldova of all the operations through the PCM’s accounts and transfer of all the money to the republic’s budget. On August 25, the Parliament Presidium adopted the decision "About the liquidation of the monuments and other Communist symbols", declaring them illegal. In two years, in 1993, a number of MPs submitted an interpellation to the Parliament, demanding that it review certain decisions and reinstate PCM. On September 7, 1993, the Parliament Presidium adopted the decision, signed by Speaker Petru Lucinschi, “About the interpellation of the 91 people’s MPs and the applications of groups of people concerning PCM”, which reinstates this party. The party is reestablished under a slightly changed name – the Communist Party of Moldova (PCRM). Vladimir Voronin was named its leader. In the presidential elections of 1996, Voronin polled 10% of the votes in the first round and backed Lucinschi in the second round of presidential elections, helping him to win. A former MP has told Info-Prim Neo that the reinstatement of PCM was possible due to the legal imperfection of the decision about the ousting of the party. Initially, the MPs says, President Mircea Snegur signed a decree banning PCM from working, but shortly afterward, Snegur insisted that this decision is taken by the Parliament Presidium. “In the haste of those days, we did not examine the international legislation and committed a mistake. If the decision had been voted at a plenary meeting of the Parliament and if the president had issued that decree, it would have been legal. Two years later, knowing the legal imperfection of the decision, most of the Agrarian-Socialist MPs in the Presidium, backed by Petru Lucinschi, cancelled the given decision,” the former MP says. Writer Nicoale Dabija says that the decision to reinstate the party was illegal as it was passed by only the Parliament Presidium so that PCRM is an illegal party that came to power by violating and ignoring the legislation. Two years ago, MPs Vitalia Pavlicenco, Oleg Serebrian, Valentina Holban and Igor Klipii signed a statement, which says that PCRM is an illegal party because the Decision of 1993 was not published. Therefore, the decision banning PCRM from working of August 23, 1991 remains valid. “We must all understand – the decline is the result of the illegal reappearance of the Communists on the Moldovan political arena. This party has never been successful, generating only tragedy and disaster and crime against humanity, which did not have and will not have something in common with the democratic, national and European values, with the European democracies which Moldova wants to join,” the statement says. PCRM won the 2001 parliamentary elections democratically and since then is the only Communist party that rules a European country. The second consecutive tenure of the Communist leader Vladimir Voronin as President of Moldova expires in 2009.