Moldovan breakaway region's speaker steps down over disagreements
The speaker of the unrecognized Dniester Moldovan republic (aka Transnistria), Yevgeniy Shevchuk, addressed MPs today to announce his resignation.
The press service of the Dniester parliament has published a wordy statement by the speaker, which basically said that his resignation was prompted by categorical disagreement with the policy of Dniester president Igor Smirnov and his close allies.
"Today the Dniester Moldovan republic is being corroded by corruption, clannishness and nepotism. It has become a tradition that the suggestions put forward by professionals are secondary. The main principle of building the governance system is the principle of individual loyalty to a person, not loyalty to the entrusted duty," Shevchuk said in his statement.
"And what is most important is that the Dniester region has been falling from the so-called 'self-sufficiency' to mass poverty which is a threat both to every Dniester citizen and to the state itself," Shevchuk said.
He predicted that the Dniester region would face serious economic difficulties in 2009-10: "We make increasingly more debts, and we live in debt. Yes, to a great extent, these difficulties are objective, connected to external factors, but we cannot fail to admit that we have many internal systematic problems."
Shevchuk said that in these conditions the lawmakers initiated discussions on reducing the number of officials, minimizing rampant paid services and introducing elements of officials' responsibility for their entrusted duties.
"And we all witnessed how those close to the president, just like after an attack command, started making open anti-constitutional calls, trying to persuade Dniester citizens that they represent the whole nation," Shevchuk said.
"Today, when our most important task is to provide people with jobs and protect the weak amid the negligence or possibly participation of Dniester officials, an impulse was given to s! tir up political intolerance, which was both destructive and potential ly resulting in cruel persecution, as well as immoral. The Dniester people told us that in this situation they were literally forced to attend the so-called public gatherings aimed at obstructing the Supreme Council [parliament], in which presidential aides were directly involved," Shevchuk said.
Interfax news agency (Russia)
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