Moldova is a unique country in Europe. It is the only remaining communist country from all Post-Soviet Union countries and one of the poorest ones. On April, the 5th the Parliament Election took place in the country and the Communist Party won again with the result of nearly 50% of the vote. But this time citizens could not accept it anymore and massive protests started in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova. The protests were planned by youth, who don’t want Communism to take place in the country anymore and want change for society.
But one of the main problems in Moldova is a huge gap between young and older population, who still believe in Communist Party and its leaders. Similar revolutions took place in many other countries in Eastern Europe, such as Ukraine and Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo. All those countries suffer from the same “evil” – the “Post-Soviet” effect that doesn’t let countries to develop and join EU and remains corruption in those countries.
But what is interesting exciting, and unique about the Revolution in Moldova is a wide usage of social networking, such as facebook, LiveJournal and especially Twitter. As the whole media sector is controlled by the Communist Government, the only way people could communicate with each other and tell the truth about the election was Internet as a whole and particularly Mobile Web. Because Internet service as well as PC is still expensive and not accessible to everyone in Moldova, young generation uses Mobile Web to chat with each other and find the news. During the protest that took place right after the results of election were published, Twitter became the only source for youth to organize meetings and discuss the situation in the country. That allowed young population to gather about 15, ooo people, who “came out of nowhere” in central Chisinau. “"Using the Internet we managed to gather 15,000 people on the square in a few minutes. Not one party can boast of such abilities," Natalya Morar, one of the leaders of the committee, told reporters.” (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iDcO_zE2vCYOyjSrPagB4xP2RoAg.)
Although right after the huge protest was organized on the main square of Moldova the Mobile service was shut down (for unknown reason, either political interruption or overloaded service) and people were not able to use Mobile Twitter anymore, they turned to other social networks, such as facebook and Blogs to keep each other posted on the news about protests. Some way or another, but social networking is becoming a powerful source for social changes especially in poor countries like Moldova. Many ask why this revolution happened in Moldova just now, after all the revolutions in other Post-Soviet countries. Well, maybe the reason is simple and its name is Social Network. I mean, if you think about it, citizens in Moldova, the only Communist country in Europe, have never had an opportunity to bypass mainstream Moldavian media outlets controlled by the government and to speak out. Now imagine how significant Social Network is in those countries and how priceless its influence is for social changes in those countries.
P.S. The only president that congratulated the Communist Party right after elections was Medvedev, current president of Russia. Obviously, Russia has its own interest in Moldova and its Communist Party as well as it had its own interest in Ukraine during the Orange revolution. It is understandable that Russian Government doesn’t want to lose the control under those countries in order not to lose the control in Eastern Europe as a whole. Russian newspapers and websites are full of ridiculous statements, like one from Russian web-site RIA-Novosti: “The protest rallies were clearly organized by the opposition, which provided buses for bringing the demonstrators to Chisinau and supplied them with stones to throw at their targets.” (http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20090408/120987903.html). No comments are needed.
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