A fresh anti-government protest in Moldova’s capital on Tuesday sparked fears of further unrest after thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand the country’s new pro-Western government fully subsidize citizens’ winter energy bills and “not involve the country in a war”. “
The protest in Chisinau was organized by a group calling itself Movement for the People and backed by members of Moldova’s Russia-Friendly Shor Party, which holds six seats in the country’s 101-seat legislature.
Protesters waved Moldovan flags and honked car horns, with many calling for the country’s president to step down. “Down with Maia Sandu!” they sang: “Down with the dictatorship!”
Dozens of coaches had bused protesters from across the country, causing temporary traffic jams as hundreds of police deployed to reinforce security-checked vehicles entering the capital. The leader of the Shor party, the exiled Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor, accused the police of trying to “obstruct the peaceful demonstration”.
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“Fighting your own people is the last refuge of tyrants and the beginning of their downfall,” Shor, who is on the US State Department’s sanctions list as a worker for Russian interests, said in a statement Tuesday.
It is the second anti-government demonstration to be held in Chisinau in two weeks and comes amid growing concerns over attempts to destabilize Moldova, which borders Ukraine.
On Feb. 13, President Sandu outlined what he claimed was an alleged plot by Moscow to overthrow the government in order to place the nation “at Russia’s disposal” and derail it from its course to one day join the 27-nation The EU Russia has strongly rejected his claims.
Marina Tauber, deputy chairwoman of Moldova’s Russia-Friendly Shor Party, speaks during a protest against pro-Western government and low living standards, in Chisinau, Moldova February 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Aurel Obreja)
In carrying out the plan, he said, the culprits “would rely on various internal forces, but above all on criminal groups such as the Shor formation and all its derivatives”.
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The Shor Party also initiated a series of anti-government protests that rocked Moldova — a candidate member of the European Union since last June — last fall as it struggled to manage a severe energy crisis after Moscow slashed natural gas supplies.
Around the same time, the Moldovan government asked the country’s Constitutional Court to outlaw the Shor party. The country’s anti-corruption prosecutor’s office said the protests were partly financed with Russian money.
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The protest also comes a day after Moldova’s intelligence and security service, SIS, said it had expelled two foreign nationals who were caught carrying out “subversive actions” to destabilize Moldova.
SIS said the pair were actively monitoring and documenting social and political processes in Moldova, including protests said to be “organized in the capital by some political forces”.
