C(h)ristian’s Blog

Chisinau in the eye of the foreign media

It seems that the recent parliamentary elections in Moldova will not pass unnoticed. At first, it was believed that the party of the incumbent president, Vladimir Voronin, polled around 50% of the votes in the elections that were considered “fair” by international observers.

The opposition parties that managed to pass the 6% electoral threshold for gaining seats in the Moldavian representative body, apparently waived far less than expected, with only some 13% for the center right Liberal Party and 12% for the Liberal Democratic Party.

However, such results were vividly contested from the release of the partial result. At the present, demonstrators have taken over the Moldavian Parliament. People contend the results accusing Vornin’s Communists of electoral fraud. Voronin has accused the demonstrators, in turn, of destabilization (BBC).

Oddly, the Moldavian State Television did not cover the incidents, opting for keeping with its scheduled transmissions, despite the gravity of the events. Romanian TV channels that can be received in Moldova as well, compensate this silence with live transmissions from the center of Chisinau, the Moldavian capital. It seems that the Moldavian youth does not accept the election results, and together with the opposition contest the official results. At the moment, it is not very clear what these street demonstrations could lead to, but there has been already registered a victim (a woman died poisoned with carbon monoxide from a fire started within the Moldavian Parliament).

Tags: Chisinau, elections 2009, fraud, Moldova, student protests

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