|
MoldovaGOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
On August 27, 1991, the Republic of Moldova declared
its
independence from the Soviet Union and became a sovereign
state,
an act that consummated the process of escalating
political selfassertion under way since 1988. Behind this phenomenon
were
glasnost and perestroika, the general
movement
toward reform initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second
half
of the 1980s.
Gorbachev's more permissive approach to political life
in the
Moldavian SSR enabled Moldovan nationalists to participate
in the
campaign for election to the Soviet Union's
Congress of Peoples'Deputies (see Glossary)
in 1989 and to form the Moldovan
Popular
Front. On February 25, 1990, the first democratic
elections for
the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR resulted in a
Popular
Front majority.
In May 1991, the country changed its name from the
Soviet
Socialist Republic of Moldova to the Republic of Moldova.
The
name of the Supreme Soviet was changed to the Moldovan
Parliament. On August 27, 1991 (now Independence Day), it
declared Moldova's complete independence. This pursuit of
independence by Moldova's government put it increasingly
at odds
with Moscow and at the same time led to growing tensions
between
the ethnic Romanian majority and the non-Romanian
minorities in
the republic.
Those tensions soon led to sporadic violence throughout
the
first half of 1992 until a cease-fire agreement was
negotiated by
presidents Snegur and Yeltsin in July. The conditions for
withdrawing the Russian 14th Army were negotiated and were
dependent on constitutional provisions that were to be
made after
the parliamentary elections of early 1994.
On February 27, 1994, parliamentary elections were
held. In
the elections, the Democratic Agrarian Party of Moldova
won a
majority, marking a turning point for Moldovan politics.
The new
Parliament was able to make compromises between ethnic
Romanians
and ethnic Slavs, thus enabling it to pass legislation and
set a
more moderate tone for governing the country. Without a
majority
of Popular Front extreme nationalists in Parliament, a
solution
to the problem of Transnistria began to be more than just
a
futile hope.
Data as of June 1995
|
