Moldova, a small country between Ukraine and Romania, doesn’t get much serious international news coverage and for good reason – most of what they do is inherently hilarious. For instance, last December, the country got a small mention when police arrested a Christmas tree in Chisinau, the Moldovan capital. Other than that, they don’t get much attention, until now.
Moldova exploded this week after the communists won 50% of the parliamentary vote on April 5, which was enough for them to choose a new president and amend the Constitution. OSCE and the EU maintain the elections were mostly free and fair, but many within the country assert that the elections were rigged.
So, unhappy with this democratic decision to curtail democracy, 10,000 people mobilized using SMS, Facebook and Twitter and staged protests on Tuesday in the main square of Chisinau. However, not everyone was there for the same reason. Some called for support from the EU. Some called to join the country with Romania. Others just plain don’t like communism. Together, they put the MOB in mobilization. They ransacked and torched government buildings. 193 people were arrested, including eight minors. 96 police officers were wounded. People again assembled on Wednesday to continue ransacking and torching government buildings. Moldovan president Voronin was quick to blame Romania for inciting the violence. Romanian leaders, for their part, were quick to deny this.
It’s hard to say what ultimately led to this outbreak of violence. It seems to be a culmination of negligence, ignorance, lack of true democratic structure, rampant corruption, and economic hard times (to name a few). In fact, the country’s recent history reads like “What Not to Do” manual. Without solid democratic structures, civic education, transparency and responsible reporting, hard times become impossible to cope with and failure is inevitable, which is either hilarious or tragic to the international community.
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