The National Movement For People, which consists of a number of parties, public associations, experts and members of civil society from the country and the diaspora, staged an antigovernment protest in central Chisinau on February 19. The participants in the protest came together in front of the square of the National Opera House “Maria Bieșu” to demand that the Government should fully pay the population’s bills for three winter months. They chanted “Down with the government” and “Don’t shut us up with the Prosecutor’s Office” during the demonstration, IPN reports.

According to the Shor Party, the protest in Chisinau involved over 40,000 people from a number of localities, who expressed their dissatisfaction with the current government that “caused a social genocide”. The people carried a long placard with a gas bill showing that the energy rates in Moldova are the highest in Europe. The protesters also brought old clothes to show that they do not have money to buy clothing as they need to spend the salary or pension on the bills.

National Movement For People member Marina Tauber, Shor Party MP, said the protest is peaceful and the demonstrators will not fall prey to the provocations planned by the government. “The government can pay the bills as it received €1 billion from the foreign partners and another €250 million is to be provided at the beginning of this year. There is money and only political will is needed,” stated the MP.

Another representative of the Movement, Tatiana Bordeianu, deputy chairwoman of the Party “We Build Europe at Home”, came with a message in English, intended also for the foreign partners of the Republic of Moldova, noting that the Moldovan citizens were condemned to poverty and famine by the current government. The people came to the protest to defend the right to survive and to seek a government that would solve citizens’ problems. “We are Moldovans and want to live decently in our country,” stated Tatiana Bordeianu.

The protesters approved a resolution saying that the government is offered a period of seven days to respond to the citizens’ request to fully pay the bills for the winter season. “We insistently demand that the country’s administration should fully pay all citizens’ gas, electricity and heat bills for the three winter months. We demand that the current government within seven days should give a response to the demands formulated by thousands of people who can no longer cope with the higher bills. We delegate the speakers to present the demands formulated in this resolution to the state administration, primarily the Government,” says the document.

Earlier, Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu stated that the staged protest was an “orchestrated” action, noting that the Russian Federation banks on corrupt and vulnerable politicians in Moldova. “There is an amalgam of events. They all form part of a plan and we know this plan. The Russian Federation’s problem is that they always bank on corrupt and vulnerable politicians in the Republic of Moldova. They do not realize that we do not have dictatorship as they have in the Russian Federation. In our country, even this organized grouping has the right to mount peaceful protests within the limits of the law, on condition that they do not destabilize,” said Igor Grosu.

According to the organizers, 10,000 people could not get to the protest after the “government gave such instructions”. For its part, the General Police Inspectorate said the citizens were transported by vehicles that didn’t meet the technical norms, but there were earlier incidents when vehicles caught fire or were involved in accidents while taking participants to protest rallies. A number of 91 irregularities were identified in the process of transporting passengers.

The police said the protest organizers didn’t respect the preliminary statement on the location of the demonstration and changed the venue to the square of the National Opera House “Maria Bieșu”. The police intervened to free a traffic lane for ambulances when these could not get to persons who needed assistance. A number of 42 reports on public order and security violations were compiled.