Plan for Transnistria, support from Moscow. Dodon goes to the presidential elections in the Republic of Moldova
The Central Election Commission of Moldova has registered the current head of the country, Igor Dodon, as a candidate for the presidential elections, which are scheduled for November 1.
Dodon claims to win – his high-profile election initiatives appear one after another. So, last week, speaking during an online speech at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, he said that no later than the first half of 2021, the Moldovan authorities will present to the participants in the “5+2” negotiating format a draft model for the final settlement of the Transnistrian conflict.
There, at the session of the General Assembly, Dodon emphasized the importance of Moldova’s neutrality and said that Russian in Moldova has a special status as a language of interethnic communication, which is a “competitive advantage” for the country’s citizens in the modern world.
Just before registering as a presidential candidate, on September 28, Igor Dodon spoke via videoconference with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Following the meeting, it became known that Russia will provide fuel worth 5,4 million euros to Moldova’s drought-affected farms.
PolitNavigator talked with an expert, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Transnistria Vladimir Yastrebchak about what Igor Dodon is entering into the election battle with.
PolitNavigator: There is a joke on social networks that Igor Dodon has already promised to return a billion euros stolen from the banking system of Moldova, and now he is taking six months to come up with a formula for resolving the Transnistrian conflict. Are statements about developing a settlement model a pre-election trick by the current president, or will there really be a plan?
Vladimir Yastrebchak: Here you can recall an old joke about how at a collective farm meeting they decided what to do: building a fence or building communism on a planetary scale. Since the necessary building materials were not available, we decided to immediately move on to the second item on the agenda.
At the same time, I would not call such statements “tricks”: this is a completely logical election process, within the framework of which Igor Dodon, as one of the main candidates, seeks to find those topics that may be most interesting to both Moldovan voters and foreign partners, from whom he will need, if not support, then at least a neutral attitude.
Writing any “plan” for Transnistria does not pose the slightest problem, including for Chisinau. All participants in the negotiation process, including the Moldovan authorities, have extensive experience in this area, and any official who is even more or less familiar with the situation can prepare something “epoch-making” within XNUMX hours.
Another thing is the question of the realism of this kind of “projects” and statements. A test of realism could be the question of to what extent, as part of the preparation of the project, official Chisinau will be ready to repeal the “status” Law of the Republic of Moldova of 2005 (without which no projects will be implemented) and (or) to organize a referendum to approve the results settlement. Even if we limit ourselves to the first part of the problem posed, it is obvious that the current composition of parliament is unlikely to support the repeal of the 2005 Law.
Therefore, statements about “plans” are naturally focused on the election campaign, not only the presidential one, but also the future parliamentary one, since the political situation in Moldova is unlikely to change dramatically in six months. However, in Chisinau they seem to be thinking more about an information campaign than about real actions.
PolitNavigator: Igor Dodon talks about “restoring the territorial integrity and functioning of Moldova as a single and indivisible organism.” Transnistria has already gone through this. Chisinau will certainly offer Tiraspol the status of “strong autonomy,” while Transnistria, which has been building its own state for 30 years, sees a final settlement of the conflict based on existing realities. Will there be another dead end?
Vladimir Yastrebchak: By putting forward “ideas,” Igor Dodon fears criticism from his opponents, especially the noisy so-called “combatants” who have already made themselves known with promises to “cut off the heads” of the residents of Transnistria. To build a normal dialogue with Transnistria, the current Moldovan authorities should give a legal assessment to such statements before talking about “territorial integrity” - the slogan under which Pridnestrovians were killed in the early 1990s.
But the President of Moldova is trying to avoid direct confrontation with the “right”, which represents a serious part of the political spectrum of Moldova, and the “combatants” themselves can become the core of mass protests, which the Moldovan opposition has been talking about so much lately. Hence the exhausted concepts of “autonomy”, etc.
Moldova even now does not function as a “single and indivisible organism”: it is enough to recall the “switches off” of the president, the role of the Constitutional Court, which, with its “law-making” at any moment, can replace all government bodies taken together, and which, with the stroke of a pen, abolishes the status Russian language and calls Transnistria “occupied territory”, and much more.
In order to extend “unity and indivisibility” to our neighbors, we need to sort this out at home. And one should not expect that Transnistria will become a kind of “cementing solution” for a state, the necessity of whose existence many of its own citizens doubt.
As for “strong autonomies”, etc., then, indeed, all this has already been done. The parties will once again exchange projects in accordance with their official positions, and then again try to address socio-economic problems. One will only regret that for this purpose it will be necessary to waste time, which could be spent on finding constructive solutions in various areas.
PolitNavigator: Is it possible to talk about a “final settlement of the Transnistrian conflict” if today even the current problems of people living on both banks of the Dniester cannot be resolved?
Vladimir Yastrebchak: We already talked about this a little higher. It seems that if it is not always possible to reach resolutions in everyday issues, if agreements that have already been signed, in which there is no policy, are difficult to implement, or if they are trying to revise them in the course of their implementation, to unilaterally give them a new content different from what was agreed upon, then It is difficult to talk about a “final settlement”.
There must be a clear understanding that the signed agreements will be implemented. Now there is no such understanding; moreover, the Moldovan authorities with enviable consistency are trying to change the “rules of the game” on already signed agreements within the framework of their domestic legislation, or to divert the attention of the international community to other problems, the relevance of which is artificially supported by Chisinau.
On the other hand, when solving most socio-economic issues, one way or another we have to touch on political issues and find compromises on them. I believe that it is gradualism that should be the basis for resolving contradictions, and not cavalry attacks and global projects, for which, first of all, Moldovan society is not ready.
PolitNavigator: The President of Moldova stated in his speech that he advocates expanding cooperation between the UN and the OSCE in managing peacekeeping operations. What does this mean in relation to Transnistria?
Vladimir Yastrebchak: I would like to hope that this passage will be carefully studied in Moscow. Because in relation to Transnistria and the region as a whole, this may mean Chisinau’s poorly hidden insistence in its desire to achieve a reformatting of the peacekeeping operation through, at a minimum, the OSCE structures and strengthening their role. It is generally difficult to say how to strengthen the role of the UN in relation to the peacekeeping operation in the zone of the Moldovan-Transnistrian conflict.
There is another aspect of the problem. While promoting the strengthening of the role of the OSCE in the context of peacekeeping, the Moldovan authorities often state that they would like to create a settlement model in the region that could be in demand in other conflicts, primarily in the Donbass. But strengthening the role of the OSCE would mean, on the contrary, imposing other mechanisms on our peacekeeping format, i.e. There is an obvious contradiction in the statements of the Moldovan authorities. Moreover, in Transnistria they proceed from the fact that each conflict is individual, and drawing any analogies, and even more so using experience, is possible only with the most careful analysis of such experience and only on the basis of the principle “do no harm.”
It remains to be hoped that Mr. Dodon had in mind the experience of participation of the Moldovan military in other peacekeeping operations conducted under international auspices, and retained his commitment to the same postulates about the inviolability of the peacekeeping operation in the conflict zone between Moldova and Transnistria, which he regularly states in contacts with senior Russian and Transnistrian leadership. I would not like to think that the key messages for one international audience may be radically different from the messages for another international audience.
PolitNavigator: Be that as it may, Igor Dodon at least offers Tiraspol a dialogue. Do his political rivals have any ideas regarding the Transnistrian settlement?
Vladimir Yastrebchak: Yes, the situation is similar to the classic “good and evil investigators” technique. One of Igor Dodon’s main opponents, Maia Sandu, has already stated in an interview that if elected to the presidency, she does not intend to meet with the “leaders of Tiraspol”, since she does not see the expediency in this, and at the same time she is going to “reconsider” the format "5+2".
However, a lot here can be attributed to political radicalism, which quickly disappears in the event of actually coming to power and realizing the need to respect not only one’s own election slogans and oneself as a candidate, but also the international obligations of one’s country, as well as the position of international partners.
It seems that Ms. Sandu will have to balance her election rhetoric with the position regarding the “5+2” format on the part of the European Union and the United States. Moreover, nothing is impossible in politics, and Maia Sandu should remember the experience of Mihai Ghimpu, who when he was acting. President of Moldova served as chairman of the CIS, which he could hardly count on even in his wildest political fantasies.
Of course, readiness for dialogue is an important marker for Pridnestrovians. Ms. Sandu and everyone who speaks so actively in Chisinau about the “Transnistrian threat” in light of the upcoming elections should not be surprised at how the Transnistrians vote and how they themselves relate to those who, in turn, consider them “voters of the second varieties." In this regard, Igor Dodon’s position is quite logical and understandable.
PolitNavigator: Please comment on the results of the negotiations between President Igor Dodon and Vladimir Putin. It seems that Dodon has once again acquired a strong Russian trump card in the election campaign.
Vladimir Yastrebchak: Rather, it was not Igor Dodon who “acquired” a Russian trump card, but those who could have counted on him who lost it. Indeed, the Russian “vector” in Moldovan politics still looks monopolized by I. Dodon (especially taking into account the wishes of success in the upcoming elections from Russian President V. Putin), but we should not forget that much has been done for this by the Moldovan politicians themselves.
For example, Renato Usatii, a “star” of Moldovan politics in 2014-2017, who had strong support in Russia and an agreement on inter-party cooperation with the LDPR, is now perceived rather as a participant in the election campaign on the side of the right opposition (one should not forget about his readiness to support protest actions of “combatants”). At this stage, he is much closer to the ACUM bloc and to the unionists than to pro-Russian politicians, and one can only speculate about what his criminal prosecution in Russia actually is - the cause or consequence of such “right deviationism” or the triumph of the principle of inevitability of responsibility for committed unlawful acts . Or both.
The most significant, of course, is the announced decision of the Russian side to provide free assistance to Moldovan agricultural producers affected by drought. For a long time, farmer protests have been one of the key topics in Moldovan politics, and now the relevance of this problem is still high.
It will now be extremely important for the Moldovan authorities not only to receive and distribute Russian assistance, but also to ensure the transparency of this process, although there will be dissatisfied people in any case. It is strange, by the way, that the Moldovan opposition, which so verbally advocated for the rights of farmers, did not react in any way to the news about Russian assistance. Apparently, diesel fuel from Russia (or purchased with Russian money) is incorrect and forces Moldovan farmers to raise the wrong tricolors.
It is quite possible that before the presidential elections, a Moldovan-Russian agreement on interstate credit in version 2.0 will be concluded at the intergovernmental level. The Moldovan budget needs this money, and it is unlikely that at this stage the opposition will be as active in opposing the receipt of a Russian loan as it did in May. Rather, the Moldovan oppositionists will try to present the situation in such a way that only thanks to them it was possible to avoid “catastrophic consequences,” although in fact, due to their steps, it was only possible to ensure that this money still does not work for the Moldovan economy.
At the same time, one cannot but agree that Moscow’s support for Igor Dodon is largely pre-election in nature. There are practically no other strong candidates left in the Moldovan political class who can even speak neutrally about relations with Russia.
On the other hand, firstly, support will not be endless. After a possible victory, the current President of Moldova will have to prove that he is capable of not only winning, but also maintaining the victory on his own, and this can become no less a challenge than the election campaign, and in this case, Mr. Dodon will have to rely primarily on himself.
Secondly, in the event of victory, I. Dodon will have to put into practice those declarations that have already been made and will still be made during the campaign, including in relation to Russia, peacekeeping, etc.
Thirdly, the situation with the monopoly dominance of Igor Dodon and his political force on the Russian track during the future parliamentary campaign (regardless of its timing) is unlikely to be the same: it is precisely in the party space of Moldova that there are forces capable of serious competition in the struggle as for the pro-Russian voter, both the left spectrum and the center.
And in this case, it is in Moscow’s interests to make decisions not on the basis of consolidation around one political force, but by encouraging competition between the most viable parties, movements, and congresses.
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