Opposition MPs block rostrum, oppose passage of Budget Bill

15 Opposition deputies (representing the Moldova Noastra Alliance Party and several unaffiliated MPs) blocked on Friday, November 23, the rostrum of the Parliament in an attempt to stop the passage of the 2008 State Budget Bill in final reading. The adoption of the Budget was the single item on today’s agenda of the Parliament sitting. At the very start of the meeting, AMN leader Serafim Urecheanu requested a postponement for the Bill to be more carefully examined and debated with the civil society, but his proposal was voted down by the Communist majority. MP Dumitru Braghis, president of the Social Democracy Party, stated that while the budget can be called national in terms of revenues, it is definitely a Communist Party’s budget in terms of expenses. He declared that the group he leads cannot take park in such games and will leave the sitting, encouraging the other deputies to follow their example. The AMN group requested a break, and, upon its return to the meeting, the Democrat leader Dumitru Diacov announced that the group he leads will join the protesters, because the Communists refused to consider at leas one of the amendments proposed by the Democrats. The Christian-Democratic group didn’t even appear in the hall after the break. Serafim Urecheanu stepped in front of the rostrum to read a declaration, but speaker Marian Lupu instructed him to use any of the microphones in the hall instead. Afterwards, the AMN deputies, two members of the National Liberal Party and unaffiliated Valentina Cusnir, joined Urecheanu on the rostrum. The MPs carried a poster reading “The Communist Budget – The Poverty of the Nation”. The chairman of the parliamentary commission on economic policy, budget and finance, Nicolae Bondarciuc, was invited by the Speaker to take the place of the missing Deputy Speaker Iurie Rosca in the presidium and read the commission’s report. As the report was presented, Urecheanu tried to cover it by reading AMN’s declaration. After he was done reading it, the deputies that gathered on the rostrum burst out applauding and shouting anticommunist slogans, trying to prevent the Parliament from signing the Budget Bill into law. However, they failed in their intention as Marian Lupu put the bill to a vote. The Budget Law was adopted with the vote of the 56 Communit MPs, who took turn to burst into applauses when they saw the bill passed. Upon the closing of the sitting, Urecheanu told reporters that AMN would stage protests in Chisinau and across the country.