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Moldova Page |
Welcome to ElectionInfo.com's pages on Moldova
Official Name: Republic of Moldova
Capital: Chięinau
Area: 33,700 square kilometres ( 13,012 square miles )
Major cities (Population): Chięinau 685,000 (1990 estimate)
Population: 4,432,000 (1995 estimate)
Population growth rate: 0.3 per cent (1990-1995 average)
Type of government: Republic
Independence: 27 August 1991 (from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [USSR])
Constitution: A new constitution was adopted in July 1994, replacing the old Soviet constitution of 1979.
Voting Rights: Universal at age 18
Government
A new constitution came into force in August 1994, establishing Moldova as a presidential, parliamentary republic with a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government. The 104-member Parliament is directly elected by all citizens aged 18 and over. Citizenship is granted to ethnic Moldovans and others who meet certain residency and ancestry requirements. Considerable decision-making authority is delegated to local governmental bodies, particularly in the former separatist regions.
Recent History
Since the late 1980s ethnic and territorial issues have been major political problems in Moldova. Tensions escalated, resulting in a civil war in which hundreds of people have been killed. After a law was passed in 1989 making Romanian the official language, separatist movements appeared in the southern and eastern portions of the country. Local officials refused to enact the language law in the area east of the River Dnestr, where large numbers of Slavs reside but do not constitute a majority of the population. A political group promoting greater autonomy for the area, Yedinstvo (Russian for “unity”), was formed.
In September 1990, after a referendum on autonomy was held, the local leadership created a Trans-Dnestr Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which was preceded by the formation of an autonomous Gagauz Soviet Socialist Republic in the southeast. In 1991, when the Moldovan government declared independence from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the Trans-Dnestr leadership declared independence from Moldova. Fighting soon broke out, and in 1992 Moldovan President Mircea Snegur authorized military action against the rebels. The rebels, aided by contingents of Russian Cossacks and the Russian 14th Army, consolidated control over the disputed area. The Moldovan government made several futile requests for United Nations (UN) intervention, but was forced to settle for a combined Russian-Dnestr-Moldovan peacekeeping force. In May 1993 the Moldovan side made several concessions to the opposing side, including the presence of Russian forces in eastern Moldova until the region is granted special political status. Unsatisfied, the Trans-Dnestr leadership demanded that the Moldovan Parliament rescind parts of its 1991 declaration of independence and return the republic to a subordinate political position within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
In February 1994 Moldova held its first free parliamentary elections. The Communist-led Agrarian Democratic Party won the largest number of seats, and a bloc of Socialist parties won the next largest percentage. In a referendum held in March 1994, 90 per cent of the voters supported an independent Moldova with its 1990 borders, which would include the Trans-Dnestr region. In April Parliament cemented Moldova’s status within the CIS, ratifying the 1991 agreement. However, the country declared that it would not take part in CIS military or monetary alliances. In July the country’s first constitution was adopted. It reaffirmed Moldova’s status as an independent political and cultural unit and granted some special rights to the regions of Gagauz and Trans-Dnestr. In August 1994 the government reached an agreement with Russia that would remove all Russian troops from the Trans-Dnestr region within three years. The agreement was made official in October, and by November half the Russian troops were reported to have left. However, in March 1995 a vote that was not sanctioned by the Moldovan government showed that 90 per cent of Trans-Dnestr residents wanted Russian troops to remain in the region.
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