Moldovan MPs say govt misinforms about Transnistria; demand hearings

In the dark: The parliament building in Tiraspol, the capital. MPs from nearby Moldova want to shed light on the true situation

CHISINAU (Tiraspol Times) - The majority of Moldova's parliamentarians are kept unaware of the real state of things in and around Transnistria. So says MP Dumitru Diakov, the leader of Moldova's Democratic Party (DP).

Deputies representing the Democratic Party (DP), the Social Liberal Party (SLP) and the National Liberal Party (NLP) have demanded holding parliamentary hearings on Transnistria in the course of the next two weeks, news agency Infotag reported.

All three parties are in opposition to Moldova's ruling Communist Party, led by strongman Vladimir Voronin, a former Soviet-era general.

Diakov stated that despite "the strange optimism being noticed in Chisinau recently", a greater part of the parliamentarians are kept unaware of the real state of things in and around Transnistria. For this reason, he and his party now want full information on the Moldovan government's planned actions against Transnistria.

The leader of the National Liberal Party (NLP) leader, MP Vitalia Pavlicenco, supports this demand. She says it is necessary to hold such hearings without delay, so as to have a full picture of the initiatives that were recently floated by Voronin. The package is a mix of threats, pressure tactics and symbolic concessions in areas that have already been agreed upon in 2003 and prior, but which Moldova consistently failed to implement until now.

No public hearings

In order to keep the people of Transdniestria in the dark, the Social Liberals are even ready to hold the hearings behind closed doors. They say that the main thing is that the hearings are held, and not whether they are open to the public or not.

Moldova's Communist Party is not willing to hold any hearings whatsoever; not even secret hearings behind closed doors. Unlike Transdniestria, where the opposition holds the largest number of seats in Parliament and provides an effective counter-balance to the president of the country, in Chisinau the Communists dominate the Moldovan legislature with 56 out of 101 seats.

Transnistria (officially Pridnestrovie, but also known under names such as Trans-Dniester and Transdniestria) declared independence in 1990, one year before the current Republic of Moldova was formed.

It is located between Ukraine and Moldova. According to an official report by the government of Ukraine, "de facto Transdniestria possesses all the attributes, which are inherent in independent states, such as the Constitution, the national flag, the anthem the coat-of-arms, bodies of state authority, the army, the national monetary unit, and so on."

On its official web-portal, the government of Ukraine informs that Transdniester president Igor Smirnov main goal has been "dedicated to establishing and consolidating the Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic’s independence and statehood attributes" and informs that this goal "has been partly attained as de facto Transdniestria is an independent state." (With information from Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, kmu.gov.ua, Infotag)

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