Communist Party accuses Smirnov's government of negligence

Communist leaders lash out against Smirnov's government for its handling of recent bus bombings in Tiraspol. (Archive photo)

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - "Resign, Igor Smirnov!" That's the message which the Communist Party of Pridnestrovie is sending to the president of the country in a strongly worded statement blaming the executive and the cabinet of ministers for recent bus explosions in the capital.

The bomb blasts in the Tiraspol public transport is the result of "inept state governance and of the ruling elite's carelessness and indifference to grass-root citizens", the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Pridnestrovie wrote in its statement. The party, a direct descendant of the former ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union, directly accused the country's government of being "unable to ensure security to citizens" and went on to state that "the rulers do not take care of the people".

"The current situation in the republic is intolerable. Our law-enforcement organs have failed to prevent the monstrous crimes against peaceful residents of Pridnestrovie", the public document, published in local media, said.

The communist party leaders publicly challenged the government to answer whether anybody from government had been punished for negligence after the tragic events, asking: "Has anyone from top leadership expressed a wish to voluntarily resign for the failure to manage his or her duties?"

It is the view of the Communist Party that punishment must be metered out to those in charge; starting with the country's highest ranking elected official, Pridnestrovie's president Igor Smirnov.

"We call for not only measures to find and punish criminals for killing people, but also punishment of those high-rank officials who are in charge of the Pridnestrovie's citizens' security, otherwise such irresponsibility may lead to new tragedies and victims", read the official statement of the Communist Party of Pridnestrovie.

No public support for Communism

The Communist Party of Pridnestrovie is one of the smallest political parties in the country. It was outlawed for several years in the 1990's, following the fall of the Soviet Union, but is now again legal.

The party lacks public support, having been unable to get any of its members elected for public office at a national level. No Communists are represented in parliament, and only a few are present in town- and local councils. It has consistently been critical of the government administration and, in particularly of president Igor Smirnov ever since he first burst onto the political scene in 1990.

When Igor Smirnov first stood as a candidate for public office in a local Tiraspol election in February 1990, he did so on an anti-Communist platform. Coming as a shock to local Communist leadership, Smirnov beat his official challenger, the First Secretary of the city’s Central Party Committee, Leonid Tsurkan, by a 2-to-1 margin. Ever since independence was declared later that year, the Communist Party’s power continued to wane.

Distrust between the Communist Party and the Smirnov family go back even further than that, however. When Igor Smirnov was ten years old, his father, Nikolai Stepanovich, was arrested and given a 15 year sentence in hard labor camp for unspecified "anti-Soviet activities". Igor Smirnov has never stood for public office as a Communist and has, in every campaign, opposed Communist candidates or principles.

He is not on speaking terms with Moldova's president Vladimir Voronin, a card-carrying Communist and the leader of that country's Communist Party, who was head of Chisinau's Ministry of the Interior in Soviet times and held the rank of Major General in the Soviet MSSR.

The Communist Party of Pridnestrovie is not affiliated with the ruling Communist Party of Moldova. Pridnestrovie's Communists support independent statehood for the unrecognized country, and merely calls for a change of leadership. In contrast, Moldova's Communists consider Pridnestrovie - or Transnistria, as it is also known - to be part of Moldova and calls for the removal of not only its leadership, but its entire claim to existence.