Moldova: "Revolution, here we come!"

Guest blogger: Dorina (Live from Chisinau/Moldova) NEW:  Read more here: part 2 , part 3 and part 4!

On April 6, at 6 pm, the second day after the Parliamentary elections, when the counting of almost 98% of the votes was indicating that the communist have won again (obtaining almost 50% and 61 seats in the Parliament out of the total of 101), young people gathered at the monument of Stefan cel Mare (Stephen the Great) from the National Square in the Republic of Moldova. Each one of them was holding a candle in his hand that was lightened in order to declare this day the National Mourning Day.

Most of the people found out about this initiative through different internet channels – blogs, forums and especially facebook. People got surprised and enthusiastic to see that more than thousand of participants came at first and in the next hour there were already 10,000 of them. After lighting candles at the monument of the national historic leader of all Moldovan people, young people went to the Parliament shouting “Down with the communists!”, “Better dead then communist!”, “I refuse, I resist! I am anti-communist!”, “Freedom!”, “Down with the censorship!”, “We want repeated voting!” Later on, the leaders of the opposition parties adhered to the cause of the protesters. From 6 pm till around 10 pm the long line of 10,000 people have stopped by all the important points: the Presidency, that faces the Parliament of the Republic, the Government and the Electoral Central Commission – all of this abide to the communist government and consider themselves democratic, open to the public institutions. On Monday the protest went on really peacefully and people were only cheering and singing, protesting against the communists that are ruling.

Today, there was a press conference of the organizers that explained that they did not expect so many people to gather, but apparently the cause was of great importance to them and that the electoral process has not been free and fair and that the youth only wanted their voice to be heard. Besides this, the organizers of the flashmob from April 6, also were unsatisfied that the opposition did not mobilize the youth before elections, but were concerned with the dividing the power between them. And the idea behind this protest is to create a big citizen coalition.

To be continued…