“I have more important things to do”, said president Igor Dodon when asked by reporters what he thought about the Liberal Party’s decision earlier this month to start sentinelling a memorial stone in Chisinau’s central plaza.

“They better watch over (the arrested Chisinau Mayor and Liberal Part vice president Dorin) Chirtoaca. I have more important things on my agenda”, Igor Dodon told a press briefing Monday.

Designed as a placeholder for a future monument to victims of Soviet occupation, the stone was erected in the Great National Assembly Square, in a place once occupied by a Lenin statue, on the initiative of the Liberal leader Mihai Ghimpu during his caretaker presidency in 2010. The Liberals announced on August 3 that party members and volunteers would guard the stone after they learned “from reliable sources” that the president intended to take it down by the time of the Independence Day and Language Day festivities later this month.