The cast-iron statue of Vladimir Lenin gazing severely from this regional capital’s town hall may look a bit weather-beaten, but the important fact is that it is still standing.
Old Vlad’s likeness could be seen as a metaphor for the fortunes of Moldova’s Communist Party as a whole. The communists received a political battering recently, but they are still far from vanquished completely.
Last month another Vlad — Vladimir Voronin, the party’s iron-willed leader — resigned as Moldova’s president after eight years, ending the reign of Europe’s only communists to hold power.
The resignation was required by the country’s constitution after a coalition of western-leaning parties, the Alliance for European Integration, eked out a victory in July in bitterly-contested parliamentary elections, winning 53 seats to the communists' 48. The campaign saw the two opposing camps trading accusations of treason and dictatorial designs.
“I hand over power to the hands of the new authorities with a heavy heart," Voronin said in a statement Sept. 11. “I do not believe that politicians who have made an alliance only on the basis of emotions of denial and complete denigration of their own country, with the only goal of distributing posts, are able to put forward a new positive program.”
Read Full Article »