Renewal (Transnistria)

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Transnistria
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Renewal or Renovation (Obnovleniye), a pro-business party, is the largest opposition political party in Transnistria.

It was founded as a political NGO in 2000 and campaigned under its current name in the 27 March 2005 local council elections, where, for the first time in its five year history, it won a majority of the seats.^[1]

In the legislative elections of 10 December 2000, Renewal won 7 out of 43 seats. The organization improved on 11 December 2005 to win 23 of those 43 seats (with another 6 seats going to allies).

It was officially registered as a full political party in June 2006.^[2]

The original name of the party, in Russian, is Obnovleniye which can interchangeably be translated as either Renovation and Renewal. The party itself and most foreign press prefers the latter translation, Renewal. The party's leaders in parliament are Mikhail Burla and Yevgeni Shevchuk. The latter was elected speaker (chairman) of parliament following the party's sweeping December 2005 win.

There is a debate regarding the position of Renewal in regards to Transnistrian president Igor Smirnov. Most analysts point to the party's opposition status, noting that it is not allied with President Igor Smirnov, whose party, Respublica, lost several seats to Renewal in the latest parliamentary election. ^[3] ^[4] ^[5] ^[6] ^[7] However, others claim that the interests of the "Smirnov clan" are represented in all political movements of Transnistria, including Renewal^[8].