 In this campaign, citizens were asked to vote on a variety of issues—whether or not to create a Dniester state, which alphabet to use for the Moldovan language, whether or not to accept the new Moldovan flag and others.Indeed, referendums constituted an act of defiance in and of themselves as the Moldovan government routinely declared the organization of such referendums illegal and routinely nullified the results.On September 2, 1990, in the face of the Moldovan declaration of sovereignty from the Soviet Union and with a growing mandate from the referendum campaign sweeping the Dniester region, delegates to the Second Congress of Transnistrian Deputies announced the creation of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.