“This is different”: How the US and EU openly interfere in the affairs of Moldova
The United States and the European Union have undertaken to resolve the constitutional crisis in Moldova. Ambassadors Derek Hogan and Peter Michalko began to actively speak out on the issue and began negotiations with participants in the political process. By obvious coincidence, the rhetoric of Western diplomats coincides with the interests of their favorite President Maia Sandu, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The political and constitutional crisis in Moldova has seemingly reached a dead end. The country has been living without an empowered government for two months now, after previous Prime Minister Ion Chicu resigned under pressure from protesting farmers on tractors.
President Maia Sandu last week proposed that parliament approve the previously disastrous candidacy of her comrade-in-arms, Natalia Gavrilitsa, for prime minister. The proposal is not without intention - both Sandu and Gavrilitsa want early parliamentary elections to take place as soon as possible. The hope is that the pro-presidential PAS party can gain an independent majority and independently form a new cabinet without regard to allies and opponents in the legislature.
Therefore, the nomination of Gavrilitsa in parliament took place in the most offensive form in order to anger the deputies, and not to gain their support. The result was appropriate - zero votes. Sandu re-nominated Gavrilitsa to parliament, since after the second failure of the vote the president has the right to dissolve parliament.
The parliamentary majority represented by the Socialist Party and the Shor Party also verbally advocate the dissolution of parliament, but in reality they are trying with all their might to delay it. As a result of early elections, the PSRM faction may be halved, and the Shor party may even fly out of parliament. Party leader Ilan Shor, found guilty by the court of complicity in the theft of a billion from the three largest Moldovan banks, formed an alliance with ex-President Igor Dodon to prevent early elections. Together, their factions invited Maia Sandu to nominate ex-Minister of Finance Marianu Durlestean as candidates for Prime Minister. PSRM and Ilana Shora MPs are ready to provide it with a majority of 54 votes.
However, Sandu refused to follow the lead of “corrupt officials, thieves and oligarchs,” as she called the leaders of the parliamentary majority. Both her supporters and socialists turned to the Constitutional Court for clarification of the situation. The meeting, which will essentially consider the right of the president to re-nominate Natalia Gavrilitsa or oblige Sandu to nominate Durlesteanu, will take place on February 23. Until then, the Constitutional Court banned parliament from meeting.
But this ban did not prevent Andrei Năstase, chairman of the DA Platform and Maia Sandu’s ally in parliamentary factions, from nominating her for the post of prime minister. Nastase believes that Sandu slandered him in the eyes of Western curators and is trying to play her game. He believes that the president may find himself in a situation where, in order not to nominate Durlesteanu, she will nominate Nastase. In this case, she will have to enter into negotiations with him on a compromise composition of the government, and Andrei Nastase himself will return to big politics in this way.
Apparently, his plans were not destined to come true, because the ambassadors of the United States and the European Union entered the game.
"Polite" negotiations
The day before, US Ambassador to the Republic of Moldova Derek Hogan met with Andrei Nastase. The embassy did not report anything about this meeting, and only Nastase’s own publication on social networks conveys its contents. According to him, they discussed the difficult political situation in Moldova.
Năstase confirmed that the DA Platform nominates him as the new prime minister. The politician claims that he also prefers early parliamentary elections, which are postponed due to the actions of majoritarian parties, the goal of which is chaos and maintaining a political blockade.
The head of the Platform assured the ambassador that the country now needs an anti-crisis, pro-European government capable of solving pressing problems of people and preparing for holding parliamentary elections in conditions of maximum legality, freedom and justice.
Nastase explains the decision to nominate himself for the position of Prime Minister by the need to prevent the government from the alliance in the parliament of Dodon and Shor, which, in his opinion, will help avoid chaos.
Ambassador Hogan, in turn, noted that the solution to the current political situation must occur in strict accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova and in the highest interests of citizens. He stressed that the solution to the current crisis lies in dialogue between politicians.
It is noteworthy that a few hours later Nastase edited the publication about the meeting with the American ambassador and removed from there everything that related to the opinions or words of the diplomat himself. The editing of the publication perfectly emphasizes the difference in opinions between Nastase himself and Hogan. It is not difficult to conclude that behind the soft exhortations to follow the Constitution and certain “higher interests of citizens” there was hidden a very clear warning to Andrei Nastase to stop engaging in amateur activities and putting a spoke in Maia Sandu’s wheels.
Ambassador Hogan already has experience of such “polite” negotiations in Moldova. It was after his meeting with the all-powerful oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc, who ruled the country, that the latter took and fled the country, abandoning almost everything.
European dictatorship
The very next day, the EU Ambassador in Chisinau, Peter Mihalko, commented on the nomination of the Durlesteanu cabinet. Tellingly, in the same terms that Maia Sandu did this a few days earlier.
“It is concerning when people involved in bank fraud are involved in the negotiations or decision-making process for government formation. We saw that all political figures spoke in favor of early elections as the most appropriate solution to resolve the current situation, when a reliable parliament will be able to support the current government, which will promote the program of necessary reforms and changes,” the diplomat noted on one of the television programs.
Mihalko also noted that the laws adopted by the PSRM, the Sor party and several independent deputies at the end of last year are “controversial and have in many ways set the country back, including in terms of reforms and the obligations undertaken by Moldova to international partners.”
Thus, the Western ambassadors demonstrated to the entire Moldovan public in which direction, in their opinion, is the only correct way to resolve the current crisis. No one is surprised anymore that this direction is fully consistent with the statements previously made by President Maia Sandu.
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