Over ten
thousand Russians late last week protested the tyrannical Russian Federation
regime of Vladimir Putin by commemorating the anniversary of the murder of the
main opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, near the Kremlin. Demonstrators risk arrest, as the freedom of
peaceful assembly is not tolerated by Putin.
Many opposition leaders, regime critics or journalists have been
murdered, even abroad, imprisoned or driven into exile under Putin’s rule.
There were
more arrests late last week of the military by the Islamist authoritarian
regime for alleged ties to a cleric exiled in Pennsylvania who is blamed for the attempted
military coup of 2016. Tens of thousands
of Turks have been sacked or arrested.
The purge of all opposition to the regime has continued even after the
lifting of the emergency decree.
Parliamentary
elections in Moldova
Sunday were inconclusive as no party gained close to a majority. The ruling center-left coalition came in
third, after the pro-Russian nationalists and the pro-Western main center right
coalition, with another pro-Russian far right-wing party entering Parliament with a
fourth-place finish. The Communists and
another center-right party both lost all their seats in the national assembly. Unless the center-right and center-left can
form a national unity government, another vote will be necessary.
An increase in authoritarianism and
corruption, like elsewhere in Eastern Europe ,
as well as a higher cost of living were factors in the loss by the
ruling party of the former Soviet republic that feels threatened by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Moldovan admission to the
European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or a turn toward Russia could be determined. An
issue for some of the center-right parties and many Moldovans is union with Romania ,
minus the breakaway Transnistria, inhabited by ethnic Russians and where
Russian troops are stationed, and probably Gaugazia, inhabited by the Gagauz. Moldovans are ethnic Romanians.
There is publicly an effort within the European Peoples’ Party, a center-right European parliamentary
group, to exclude Fidesz, the Hungarian ruling party, for failure to live up to
the group’s principles of freedom. Hungary ’s Prime
Minister admits his increasingly authoritarian government as “illiberal.” Fidesz is a far-right anti-immigrant
nationalist pro-Russian (i.e. pro-Vladimir Putin) party. European parliamentary elections are scheduled for later this month.
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