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MoldovaIncreasing Political Self-Expression
In this climate of openness, political self-assertion
escalated in the Moldavian SSR in 1988. The year 1989 saw
the
formation of the Moldovan Popular Front (commonly called
the
Popular Front), an association of independent cultural and
political groups that had finally gained official
recognition.
Large demonstrations by ethnic Romanians led to the
designation
of Romanian as the official language and the replacement
of the
head of the CPM. However, opposition was growing to the
increasing influence of ethnic Romanians, especially in
Transnistria, where the Yedinstvo-Unitatea (Unity)
Intermovement
had been formed in 1988 by the Slavic minorities, and in
the
south, where Gagauz Halkî (Gagauz People), formed in
November
1989, came to represent the Gagauz, a Turkic-speaking
minority
there
(see Ethnic Composition
, this ch.).
The first democratic elections to the Moldavian SSR's
Supreme Soviet (see Glossary)
were held February 25, 1990. Runoff
elections were held in March. The Popular Front won a
majority of
the votes. After the elections, Mircea Snegur, a
communist, was
elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet; in September he
became
president of the republic. The reformist government that
took
over in May 1990 made many changes that did not please the
minorities, including changing the republic's name in June
from
the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic to the Soviet
Socialist
Republic of Moldova and declaring it sovereign the same
month.
Data as of June 1995
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