On Wednesday night, hundreds of protestors broke through police lines and flooded into the Moldovan parliamentary building after the announcement that Pavel Filip, deputy chairman of the ruling Democratic Party and the minister of technology and communication, had been voted prime minister.
Outside the parliamentary building, crowds yelled “cancel the vote!” and “thieves!”
Police used tear gas to try to control the crowd and successfully pushed the protestors out of the building once, before they managed to break in a second time. Video clips by Russian media show crowds tussling with police officers and yelling chants calling for early elections.
The protest outside of the parliament building was only one of three separate protests held in the Moldovan capital over the course of the last four days. Two were organized by pro-Russian parties, while the third was arranged by Dignity and Truth, an anti-corruption group.
Filip is the third prime minister appointed by the Moldovan parliament in the last year. Two previous candidates were nominated by the parliament, but were rejected by the country’s president.
Filip’s appointment followed an inquiry into the legitimacy of the nomination by the opposition Party of Socialists. The Socialists challenged the nomination on the groups that Filip’s nomination had violated established nomination procedures. Russian news sites reported on Tuesday that Moldova’s Constitutional Court had determined that the inquiry into “the legitimacy of the presidential decree” was “ungrounded.”
“The ruling is final and is not subject to any appeal,” the statement concluded.
Moldova had been without a proper government since the fall of the previous administration to a no-confidence vote in October. At the time, the ruling coalition, the Alliance for European Integration (comprised of three liberal and democratic parties) came under heavy criticism both at home and abroad after it was discovered that more than $1 billion had been stolen from three Moldovan banks.
The missing money is equal to one-eighth of Moldova’s GDP. The country is considered by some measures to be the poorest in Europe.
Opposition figures are criticizing Filip for both his pro-EU tendencies and his association with Vladimir Plahotniuc, an oil oligarch who is both one of the richest and most unpopular men in Moldova.
It remains to be seen whether Filip’s ruling coalition will hold, let alone if he will be able to persuade the Moldovan populace that the era of corruption is over. Despite the shouting mob outside his door, Filip appears to be putting on a brave face.
“The people of Moldova don’t need a government that says pleasant things, but a government that solves their problems,” he said on Wednesday.
