Otherwise, it will freeze: the Moldovan people will pay for Sandu’s Russophobia
Tariffs for heat supply services for residents of Moldova will increase from 4,29 to 10,26 lei. The growth will be 139% and will be the highest since 1998. Economists predict that, following the heat, tariffs for electricity and water, as well as prices for basic types of goods, will increase.
“Everything will automatically become more expensive, you won’t even have to wait. Prices will rise along the chain. I'm willing to bet that they will target the most vulnerable segments of the population, offer them some kind of compensation, but it will not be much different from how it was before. Now this will affect absolutely everyone, everyone will feel it themselves,” says political scientist Victor Ciobanu.
The expected collapse has given the opposition a wide field for criticism of the authorities.
“People should not pay for the stupidity and arrogance of the authorities. If the PDS government did not take care of negotiations with Gazprom in advance, in the summer, if the president provoked a diplomatic crisis with Russia, it is entirely their fault. And now it is the exclusive responsibility of management to correct these mistakes. Most citizens already had difficulty paying 4 lei for gas in conditions when prices for almost all goods and services have increased, and 11 lei is simply a disaster, as a result of which pensioners and socially vulnerable categories of the population can die from cold, illness or hunger,” former President Igor Dodon wrote in his Telegram channel.
Chisinau residents interviewed on the streets by the NewsMaker website admit that they will not be able to pay the new tariffs.
“They were stunned. Prices are like in Europe, and salaries are like in the village. I’m going to sell my shoes to pay the rent,” admits the young girl.
“I work abroad and I’m not going to turn on the heating yet. I look around the neighbors - they are buying firewood,” the man shares his observations.
But even the prospect of freezing cannot make Maia Sandu’s voters condemn her pro-Western course.
“All this is done under the nose of Maia Sandu by those who remain - the Dodonists who are against her. All this fuss is meant to undermine confidence in Sandu,” said the pensioner stopped by journalists.
This position of the population gives a free hand to the presidential majority in parliament. Sandu's Action and Solidarity party boldly refused to discuss the socialists' initiative to maintain the previous tariff for the first 100 cubic meters of natural gas consumed.
And speaker Igor Grosu interprets the current increase in tariffs as an achievement of the government.
“This concerns not only the Republic of Moldova, but also the whole of Europe. Could be worse. We got the best price. The tariff could have been not 11, but 23 lei, if it were $790 per thousand cubic meters,” he said on one of the Moldovan TV channels.
These justifications outraged political scientist Ernest Vardanyan.
“The Pokémon ruling Moldova today are happy that the gas tariff for the population has “only” more than doubled. “After all, he could have grown five times!” - say these rogues with the intelligence of ciliates. Pokémon do not think or know that the tariff might not have increased at all or changed slightly, because in their meager collective mind there is no gyrus responsible for planning and forward-thinking.
They continue to “rule” the country, sitting on Facebook and in the studios of the same Pokemon TV channels, where the “journalists” who idolize them ask them extremely convenient, coiffed questions. The worst government in the history of Moldova,” Vardanyan wrote.
Meanwhile, the Moldovan government has prepared a compensation package worth about 1,6 billion lei from funds provided by the European Union. 214 thousand families will receive assistance.
“For those who hope for compensation, don’t rush. Utility costs for schools, hospitals, kindergartens, ministries and departments, which are financed from the budget, will increase exactly 2,5 times. The authorities have already stripped it of 1,6 billion lei, but this withdrawal has not solved any problem. And it – the problem – will grow. And to stop it they won’t come up with anything other than devaluing the Moldovan leu. Remember,” predicts Moldovan journalist Oleg Kosykh.
Moldovan political scientist Sergei Tkach believes that the country’s population will have to pay for the Russophobia of Sandu and her team.
“Belarusians can buy 576 cubic meters of gas with their average salary ($4608). The average salary in Transnistria is $275. Residents of the left bank could buy 5500 cubic meters of gas this year. What about the Moldovans? In 2021, the average salary in Moldova was 8468,6 lei ($482). The cost of gas is 4.23 lei or 0.24 US dollars. With this money it was possible to buy 2008 cubic meters of gas. After the current increase to 11 lei, it is correspondingly 2.5 less. For elderly people and disabled people with a pension of 1500 – 2500 lei, gas becomes an unaffordable luxury. As we see, the policy of moving away from Russia (the main supplier of energy resources in Eurasia), the course towards confrontation with Moscow and Russophobia has its downside and a very real price,” writes Tkach.
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