Shelin's party collects signatures for joining Customs Union

The future of Moldova is within the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union and the Eurasian Union, thinks an initiative group that was created by Victor Shelin, the leader of the pro-Russia Social-Democratic Party, to collect signatures for a referendum to this end, Info-Prim Neo reports. Ruslan Byrladean, the secretary of the group, said that the number of 100,000 signatures of the 200,000 required to initiate the referendum has already been reached four days ago. The process of collecting signatures continues at a fast pace. According to Byrladean, in Chisinau the number of signatures is steadily rising, even if, he says, the government attempts to hinder the process by employing the police. Stepan Tsolov, former head of Taraclia district, said a group of 32 members was created in the district to collect signatures from the population. According to Tsolov, people are rather sympathetic to the idea and agree to participate in the referendum. In fact, as Tsolov claims, 90 percent of the district's residents would vote for this initiative, with the district being heavily populated with Russian-speaking Bulgarian and Russian ethnics. “The leadership of the district reacted calmly to our signature-collecting effort. Moreover, they think we will fail to gather the required number of signatures for a national referendum. But we beg to differ”, stated Ion Munteanu, the leader of Leova district's group. Victor Shelin himself sees Moldova's accession to these Russia-centered organizations as a solution against the existing “radical movements” that promote “unification with Romania”. “The Moldovan Parliament is led by Romanian deputies who pursue and anti-governmental and anti-popular policy that fails to address the problems of ordinary people”, Shelin declared in a fervid statement. The Social-Democratic Party announced its intention to collect signatures for a national referendum on 5 December 2011, planning to hold it on 18 November 2012.