Anniversary of 'Twitter Revolution' Still Divides Moldova

Pro-Western leaders hail 15th anniversary of popular uprising against Communist leadership as start of a new democratic era - but leading pro-Russian politician says it was the start of Moldova's 'transformation into a foreign colony and a dictatorship'.

A photo exhibition on April 7, 2024, recalls the events of the ‘Twitter Revolution’ from 15 years ago. Photo: Moldovan Presidency website.

Moldova on Sunday marked the 15th anniversary of the so-called “Twitter Revolution” when the Communist regime of former president Vladimir Voronin was overthrown by mainly youthful protesters in Chisinau.

The Moldovan Presidency opened a photo exhibition featuring pictures of youngsters protesting against the then Soviet-type Communist leadership.

The name “Twitter Revolution” comes from the way messages in support of the protests were spread through Yahoo Messenger on the internet.

International media later named the protests the “Twitter Revolution”. It was the first time such protests had gone viral on social media. The so-called “Arab Spring” followed a few years later.

President Maia Sandu said the date April 7, 2009 remained an unhealed wound, recalling “the consequences of an authoritarian regime that imprisoned young people who think freely and which wanted to govern through fear, and feared its citizens.

“The young people who rose on April 7, 2009, suffered from the violence and terror of a regime that treated its citizens as enemies. The young people certainly experienced disappointments, but no one managed to destroy their dignity and moral strength to face injustice,” Sandu said on Sunday on her Facebook page.

However, Moldova’s former pro-Russian president, Igor Dodon, recalled the events with a lot less enthusiasm. Then part of the Communist Party, he declared that the uprising of April 7, 2009 had resulted in Moldopva becoming “a colony”.

“After 15 years, we still have a lot of misery, lies, migration … high prices, the transformation of the country into a foreign colony and a dictatorship that Voronin never dreamed of,” Dodon said on Sunday on his Facebook page.

The protests of April 7 2009 followed claims that the Communist Party had rigged the elections of April 5 2009, winning 60 seats out of 101.

The protest gathered thousands of young people in the centre of Chisinau demanding a more European future for Moldova. The then ruling Communist Party saw the country’s development as matching the Russian Federation.

The demonstrations in Chisinau were initially peaceful but took a violent turn when the protesters entered the parliament and presidency buildings and all but wrecked them.

The Communist leadership claimed that it was a coup orchestrated by the Western powers with the help of special services from Romania and Serbia.

The night after the protests, hundreds of young people were detained, tried and mistreated on the streets or in police stations. At least one young man, Valeriu Boboc, died.

Courts did little to bring offenders to justice. Ion Perju, a former policeman sentenced to prison for the murder of Valeriu Boboc, is still missing and was one of the few convicted for these violent acts. Perju has been wanted internationally since April 2015.

Alexandru Tanase, former Minister of Justice and former president of the Moldovan Constitutional Court, told the Ziarul de Garda newspaper on Sunday that the Twitter Revolution had lasting effects on Moldovan society whose importance cannot be underestimated.

“The Twitter revolution consigned to history an anachronistic government that claimed its identity in Soviet ideology, with which the construction of an independent state was unthinkable. The power that took over in 2009 was the first to change direction from East to West, radically.,” he said. “The first bricks in the foundation of Moldova’s orientation towards the European value space were built then,” he concluded.