Patentees shout out anticommunist slogans to make themselves heard in Parliament

The patent holders picketed the Parliament on February 14 demanding that the Law Nr. 208 that bans patent-based entrepreneurial activities and compels the traders to open individual companies be cancelled. The protesters carried placards and shouted out anti-government slogans. The crowd flared up when MPs of the Moldova Noastra Alliance Party (AMN) came from the Parliament building and announced that the AMN’s proposal to institute a moratorium on the given law by 2015 or at least for the period of the talks was voted down by the Communist majority, Info-Prim Neo reports. The AMN leader Serafim Urecheanu told the protesters that they are misled by the MPs and the ministers. “It is an anti-popular Government that pursues the aim of destroying this people. They do not want the about 60,000 patentees to have a source of income. They don’t want stability in the country,” the AMN president said. The MP Valeriu Cosarciuc said that the Communist officials are unwilling to solve the problem in favour of the patentees. “Their aim is to drive you away from the country. President Vladimir Voronin is the first person to blame,” Valeriu Cosarciuc said. Equipped with megaphones, drums and other objects, including spoons and plates, the protesters chanted slogans to make themselves heard in the Parliament. Those that came in front to express their concerns accused the authorities of spreading erroneous information about the incomes of the patent holders. They said that the market is the only place where they can earn money and that the law deprives them of their only source of income and of the workplaces that the state cannot ensure. Eugen Roscovanu, chairman of the Small Business Association, told IPN that he is not surprised that the proposal to institute a moratorium was again rejected by the Communist MPs. The protests will go on. A protest march along the capital city’s streets will be held in the near future. “We will fight until we win a victory,” the cited source said. According to organisers, about 3,000 people took part in the protest. The police avoided making estimates.