(REUTERS) — At least 8,000 people protested in the Moldovan capital on Thursday (January 21) against the appointment of Prime Minister Pavel Filip, whose hasty swearing-in ceremony at midnight prompted a government spokesperson to resign.
Demonstrators near the parliament and government in Chisinau on Thursday waved flags and listened to speeches delivered amid chants of “We are the people.”
“Neither the president notices us, nor the parliament. Someone could have come out at least and said ‘we have chosen the government, that’s what we need to do in the coming years.’ They hide like moles underground, vote for each other, and we should stand and freeze. It’s not right,” said protester Ion Turcanu.
“They took the oath in the middle of the night, without letting people know about it. Only early parliamentary elections will save our small country from banditry, from thieves – I’m sorry to say this – but from fascists,” said protester Zinaida Moraru.
“Every day everything becomes more expensive, we have no jobs, no salaries. Our pensioners are dying in their homes from the cold. This is not the life we deserve. It made me go out and protest. We want a democratic government that would work for the benefit of the citizens, for us, for the people, not for their own interests,” said protester Vitalie Sangereanu.
Parliament appointed Filip in hopes of ending months of political stalemate after the previous government was toppled in a no-confidence vote in October.
But the move has caused a backlash from opposition lawmakers and prompted a series of protests from citizens unhappy with Filip’s close ties to a prominent oligarch. There is widespread anger at Moldova’s ruling elites after a $1 billion banking fraud plunged the country into crisis last year.
Mihai Ghimpu, a representative of the Liberal Party of Moldova, was pushed and punched in the street on Thursday by angry demonstrators.
Vasile Nastase, chairman of civic Platform ‘Dignity and Truth’ condemned the government calling the country’s leadership ‘a criminal junta’.
“We are for the European way of development of the Republic of Moldova, but we are against the criminal junta, which seized this direction, which falsified it, and who lie to us every day. Under the banner of European integration these criminals steal billions from us and introduce such taxes that lead people to impoverishment,” he said.
The repeated protests threaten to derail Filip’s chances of running a stable government, at a time when Moldova sees its economy sinking and is trying to negotiate new funding from overseas lenders, including the International Monetary Fund.
A small of group of demonstrators broke into the parliament building on Wednesday demanding new elections, clashing with riot police. Underscoring the sense of chaos, the spokesman of President Nicolae Timofti later resigned.
Moldova’s ruling class was targeted in mass protests over the banking fraud, which saw the equivalent of one-eighth of Moldova’s gross domestic product disappear overseas.
The protesters say Filip is part of the problem. He has close ties to Vladimir Plahotniuc, one of Moldova’s richest men, who was a focus of the protests.
