The antigovernment protests staged by the Shor Party go on. According to the observers, the given phenomenon is shrouded in mystery. For example, it seems that the protest expands even if the social basis of this should be rather restricted, at least according to moral, political and even geopolitical criteria, even if the organizers are suspected of violating the law and despite the fact that, at least yesterday, no important political entity declared its support for the given protest. How is this mystery explained, what underground processes accompany it, what benefits and risks are generated by this twist in only a over a year of the indisputable victory of the current ruling party were among the subjects discussed by the experts invited to IPN’s public debate “Antigovernment protests: motives, demands, players, actions and effects”.
Igor Boțan, the standing expert of IPN’s project, said that the protest is a reaction to a particular social situation that is challenged by the citizens. Depending on the attitude of the authorities and the political regime to this, the protests are either authorized or unauthorized. There are a number of types of protests, such as political protest, protest addressing the public authorities whose goal is to change the challenged political situation or even to fully replace the regime or the political course.
The expert exemplified with the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, the massive protest attempt in Russia following the reelection of Vladimir Putin in 2012 etc. The social protest is against social inequity, problems existing in society, which are usually economic in character. These actions sometimes become political. There are also cultural protests caused by cultural events and these usually lead to esthetic indignation among the population.
Igor Boțan noted that besides the types of protest, there are also forms of protest, such as the vote against all, rallies, flashmob meetings, picketing, boycotts, hunger strike, petitions and protest marches. There are also violent forms or protests accompanied by violation of public order, such as rebellion, revolt, road blocking, capturing of administrative buildings.
The legal framework that regulates protests is relatively well-developed in Moldova. This is the law on assembly adopted in February 2008, which replaced the law passed in 2005. As regards the international framework, there is Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Moreover, last year the European Court of Human Rights published a guide on the exercise of citizens’ rights in assemblies.
Alexandru Postica, of Promo-LEX Association, said that both the Constitution and the law on assembly ensure each person’s right to the freedom of expression, including the right to hold a meeting. Respectively, no one has the right to judge how objective a reason for protesting is.
“We should not forget that it goes to a political party that has an agenda. Consequently, neither the authorities nor those who are on this platform can challenge the official reason declared by this party. We should not forget that each political party wants to come to power and evidently uses the available legal means to come to power,” explained Alexandru Postica.
According to him, the peaceful assembly, without arms, is a method by which a party wants to reach everyone. It is an efficient method of protesting and raising social problems. “Evidently, the opinion of these persons should be respected,” said the expert of Promo-LEX.
Mark Mazureanu, specialist in civil society, comparable policies and propaganda, said that any party has a political agenda. Any action represents a message that is transmitted to the public. The speech is public and hidden. “The public message aggregates the people’s dissatisfaction and uses the dissatisfaction of a socially deprived section that in fact exists always, in any period, in any economic situation, not to mention the current situation when the economic and energy crisis has deepened. The protest organizers try to benefit from the given dissatisfaction and to aim it to a particular direction as the party wants to come to power,” explained the expert.
According to him, the hidden message is something different and a problem is witnessed here. “We have a party with doubtful history, with very dubious leaders who are investigated and wanted and we also have other political forces that also have a list of sins and they are also dissatisfied with the central administration. These use a mass of people and the dissatisfaction to get rid of punishment, to limit the public authorities in their actions. “I don’t know how else things can be regarded,” stated Mark Mazureanu.
He noted that when the protest organizers profit from vital necessities, from particular universal, constant frustrations of a part of the population – poverty, care for the people, positive outlawry – this kind of message is very clearly understood by the subdued ones. The problem resides not in the person who takes to the streets as this cannot be blamed for not understanding a process, similar to a child who puts something banned into the socket. The party is actually to blame as the instigator.
The public debate entitled “Antigovernment protests: motives, demands, players, actions and effects” is the 264th series of IPN’s project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
