The protest mounted in the central square of Chisinau last Sunday was organized in connection with the European Union’s intention to grant the candidate country status to the Republic of Moldova, said MP of the Party of Action and Solidarity Virgiliu Pîslariuc. According to him, the event was aimed at destabilizing the situation ahead of the June 23-24 summit of the European Council. For its part, the extraparliamentary opposition calls on the state institutions to examine how this protest was financed, IPN reports.
Representatives of the government said that through the agency of this protest, some of the political parties expressed their disagreement with the authorities’ decision to come closer to the EU. According to PAS MP Virgiliu Pîslariuc, Șor Party tried to camouflage itself through the agency of the movement “New Life” so as not to answer before society for the money spent on the protest.
“The hybrid Sunday protest is related to the events taking place in Brussels, regarding our country’s EU candidate status. Attempts are made to destabilize the situation and to show that the path covered by our state does not suit some of the political players. They tried to avoid the direct association with Șor Party as this party should normally declare all these costs,” Virgiliu Pîslariuc stated in the talk show “Black Box” on TV8 channel.
“I understood that a lot of money was spent on the Sunday protest and that the current government is not as authoritarian as it is presented. Under the rule of Plahotniuc, if someone had tried to rent so many buses and minibuses, they wouldn’t have managed to. This means that the central administration and the district authorities didn’t intervene. A huge sum was spent on the organization of such an event. When protests are staged for money, a question appears, who is the beneficiary? It’s clear that only Șor is so generous in terms of money,” stated political commentator Anatol Țăranu.
Representatives of the extraparliamentary opposition said Șor Party tried to attract more participants by mounting an ostensibly apolitical protest. Representatives of the Party “Dignity and Truth Platform” consider the authorities should probe the way in which people were brought to the protest and if these were bribed or not.
“They aimed to mislead the people who are angry with the current government owing to the very high prices so as to engage them in their protest and show that they are many in number and also staged a concert. I estimated only the cost of the concert by consulting the Internet. Kirkorov – 2 million lei, Egor Kreed – 1 million lei. This is only the price asked by the singers. The assembled stage costs €20,000. As regards transport, for me it is strange that they didn’t try to investigate who rented the minibuses and buses, how the people were brought,” said former PPPDA MP Liviu Vovc, voicing hope that the responsible institutions will yet conduct investigations.
According to the organizers, about 40,000 people took part in the protest in central Chisinau. At the end of the event, they adopted a resolution by which the country and the international community are warned about the critical situation in which the Republic of Moldova is now. The organizers said the goal of the civic movement “New Life” is to make PAS renounce power and to have snap parliamentary elections held in the country.