Communist protesters detained for 72 hrs; refuse to move rally

Enemy of the state? Communist leader Oleg Khorzhan wants the right to organize protests anywhere, anytime, without prior permit

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - Law enforcement in Pridnestrovie's capital Tiraspol detained seven opposition Communist members for failure to heed local city ordinances regarding the planning of public events, police said Monday.

Five of the Communist Party members were freed after questioning, while two leading organizers were ordered held for 72 hours.

Communist Party leader Oleg Khorzhan and six other party activists were taken into custody accused of disturbing the peace, said Svetlana Antonova, a senior PMR law enforcement official.

They were distributing leaflets and using loudspeakers asking residents to take part in a protest demonstration, despite being denied a permit to hold the rally in a specific location in central Tiraspol, Antonova told AP Monday. The location chosen by the Communists would have blocked traffic and brought commerce in the capital to a standstill. She said that the Communists were offered an alternative location for their rally on Tuesday, but were still urging residents to go to the unauthorized location.

The Communists' former candidate in the country's presidential elections last December, Nadezhda Bondarenko, was among the detained. A former police officer, she received eight percent of the vote, second to Smirnov, who won re-election for a third time with 82 percent of the vote.

The administrative law court of Tiraspol, a city court, sentenced Khorzhan and Bondarenko to 72 hours detention. The other members held in connection with the incidents were free to go.

Political differences between Igor Smirnov and the local Communists center on domestic policy, such as privatizations and social services provided by the state. Smirnov, a reform-minded technocrat, favors an open, Western style economy based on free markets. In contrast, the Communists long for a return to a Soviet-style planned economy and oppose privatizations.

Coinciding with the views of the vast majority of the population, both Smirnov's government and the PMR Communists are in favor of full independence from Moldova.

Communists against free market liberalization

Representing the more vocal opposition parties in Pridnestrovie, the local Communists have a long-standing feud with independence leader Igor Smirnov. Never a professional politician, Smirnov first stood for office as an anti-Communist in 1990 when the Soviet Union was falling apart. In a surprise victory, Smirnov beat his official challenger, the First Secretary of the Tiraspol's Central Party Committee, Leonid Tsurkan, by a 2-to-1 margin. Ever since independence was declared later that year, the Communist Party’s influence continually became smaller and smaller

The Pridnestrovie Communist Party ("PKP", after its Russian initials) is one of two competing Communist parties in Pridnestrovie.

The Pridnestrovie Communist Party is the local successor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and is led by Oleg Khorzhan. State news agency Olvia Press called Khorzhan "young and dynamic", in contrast to the "conservation" Communist Party of Pridnestrovie headed by Vladimir Gavrilchenko.

Although it fielded candidates for parliament in the legislative elections of 11 December 2005, it failed to gain a single seat and has no political representation outside local government.

It supports independent statehood for Pridnestrovie but opposes the administration of President Igor Smirnov. Its candidate for the December 10, 2006 presidential election was Nadezhda Bondarenko, a former policewoman who is now working in journalism and is the editor in chief of the newspaper Dnestrovskaya Pravda ("Pridnestrovian Truth").

In Moldova, more protest-related arrests

In neighboring Moldova, about 100 uniformed and plainclothes police kept demonstrators away from a government building in central Chisinau during a large protest Monday. The rally, which had been authorized in advance, nevertheless ended in arrests. Among the arrested was Eduard Musuc, a prominent opposition political party leader and the head of Moldova's Social Democrats.

During Monday's demonstration, the protesters, many poorly dressed, came out in force against the failed economic policies of Vladimir Voronin's Communist Party government, shouting: "give to us work!" and "down with bureaucracy!"

The leader of the Social Democrat Party of Moldova (SDPM) Eduard Musuc was recently freed after having spent several months in prison. Arrested in September of 2006, he was held against his will on what he himself considers trumped-out and politically motivated charges.

" - Instead of a critical revision of its political course and resolving the heaping socio-economic problems, the ruling party has chosen a tactics of annihilation of its opponents", maintains Social Democratic Party Chairman Eduard Musuc, referring to a longstanding campaign of harassment by the Communist Party government of former Soviet-era General Vladimir Voronin.

Leaders of the Moldovan Social Democratic Party [PSDM] believe that they are being persecuted and intimidated in order to discredit and destroy the party. Eduard Musuc pleads innocent and says that all charges against him are of political nature.

Oazu Nantoi, a publicist and former leader of the Social Democratic Party of Moldova, could not be reached for comment. (With information from AP)

See also:
» Protest march unites local Communists against Smirnov's government
» In Tiraspol, Communists complain of unfair election campaign conditions
» Communist Party accuses Smirnov's government of negligence