CHISINAU, September 9 /TASS/. Organizers of Moldova’s public protests, the biggest over the past decades, have called on their supporters to hold a new mass rally in Chisinau this weekend, Vasile Nastase, a leader of the Civic Platform Dignity and Truth, said on Wednesday.
"Please tell your friends in all the other cities of the republic that we are planning another protest rally where we are going to make a very important statement," Nastase said from a rostrum set up in a tent camp on Chisinau’s main square.
Nastase repeated the protesters’ main demands were the resignation of corrupt Moldovan leaders and snap elections, which, they believe, should take place under the EU auspices.
The Civic Platform’s leaders will make a new attempt on Wednesday to meet the country’s leadership and representatives of the ruling Alliance for European Integration formed by the Democratic Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Liberal Party of Moldova.
The protest leaders said they were planning to create their own party in Moldova in future. They also met EU and US diplomats whom they asked for support.
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Protests continue peacefully in Moldovan capital
Anti-government protests in Moldova remained peaceful on Tuesday night, marking another day of relative calm for streets of a capital where tens of thousands rallied in a mass demonstration on Sunday.
Nearly 1,000 Moldovans headed to Chisinau's national square at the end of the work day on Tuesday evening to express their support for demonstrators who camped out near the government building, demanding the president's resignation and early elections after the mass embezzlement scandal of a missing $1 billion.
People continue bringing food, water and monetary donations to hundreds of activists in a tent encampment on the square. Additional police forces have been deployed to maintain order. A stage has been set up for leaders of the civic platform Dignity and Justice (DA), which organised the protest to deliver their speeches.
"Point by point, we will implement decisions we have adopted at the Great National Assembly," said one of the platform leaders, Andrei Nastase, referring to a Sunday rally gathering some 40,000 protesters on Great National Assembly Square in central Chisinau.
He said demonstrators would again call for the resignation of President Nicolae Timofti and other officials alleged responsible for widespread embezzlement and demand early parliamentary elections.
Late on Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Valery Strelets addressed the gathering in a television message and invited them for talks. He expressed regret in seeing no willingness from the protest organisers to hold discussions. "They are willing to destroy everything without thinking what happens next," Strelets said, adding that the government would continue its work, despite the protesters’ demands.
Protest action over the alleged $1 billion bank fraud broke out in the heart of the capital on Sunday as the Dignity and Justice movement call for the country's European integration.
While the incumbent administration espouses the same objective, the two political forces have largely different views on the process of entering the EU fold.
Protesters' demands, alongside resignation of President Timofti and officials including the national bank governor and early parliamentary elections, spin around the $1 billion missing from the national banking system. This brought about a sharp depreciation of the national monetary unit, the leu, fired inflation and depressed already-constrained living standards.