Anti-communists attack Moldova parliament

Anti-communists attack Moldova parliament

Original source: morningstaronline.co.uk


Anti-communists stormed Moldova's parliament on Tuesday, hurling computers through windows and setting fire to furniture in a violent demonstration against what they claimed were fraudulent elections.
Police initially stood by but turned water cannons on protesters when they began hurling stones at officers.

Chisinau Emergency Hospital doctor Iuri Baziluc said that 30 police officers and protesters had been injured in the clashes, which occurred two days after the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) had won its third consecutive parliamentary election.

Initially about 7,000 people demonstrated peacefully, waving European Union, Moldovan and Romanian flags outside the parliament building, demanding new elections and shouting "Down with the communists" and "Freedom."

But later, some protesters smashed windows on two floors of the presidential office and set fire to furniture inside, while others broke through a side entrance to the parliament, set furniture on fire and threw computers out of the windows.

The PCRM, which has been in power since 2001, won about 50 per cent of the vote in Sunday's poll, which was monitored by 3,000 national and international observers.

Monitors declared that it had been a fair election held in "conditions of political pluralism," but Chisinau Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca asserted that some voters had cast multiple ballots.

Mr Chirtoaca, who is also the deputy leader of the opposition Liberal Party, said that he believed that the official voter turnout of some 60 per cent for the ballot was inaccurate.

President Vladimir Voronin, who leads the PCRM, held an emergency meeting with ministers on Tuesday afternoon.