Passions in Moldova: Dodon is losing power and remembered pro-Russian promises
A heated meeting took place in the Moldovan parliament. The Socialists, supported by situational allies - the Shor faction and the Pentru Moldova group, adopted a number of high-profile and very diverse bills in the first reading. Many of them concerned promises to Russian-speaking voters - everything that Igor Dodon “forgot” about during the years of his presidency. But he began to act decisively as soon as he lost the elections to Maia Sandu. Below we will explain why this happened.
So, among the laws adopted in the first reading is a provision on the status of the Russian language (a new law “On the functioning of languages on the territory of the Republic of Moldova” is proposed to replace the current one adopted in 1989), the return to air of information and analytical programs of Russian television channels, rights and powers Gagauz autonomy.
In two readings, it was voted for the transfer of the Information and Security Service under the control of parliament (that is, Dodon’s associates have so far managed to take control of the “Moldovan FSB” from Sandu).
Another of the bills provides for the return to state ownership of the territory of the Republican Stadium with an area of several hectares in the center of Chisinau, which was planned to be transferred to the US Embassy for the construction of a huge new complex of diplomatic facilities.
The documents were approved by the parliamentary majority without discussion, despite the protest of representatives of right-wing parties and a fight with throwing water, hitting parliamentary furniture and breaking microphones - the opposition blocked the podium and demanded to close the meeting. Simultaneously with the start of the meeting, a protest was held outside the parliament building by supporters of the elected President Maia Sandu against the plans of outgoing President Igor Dodon to take control of the intelligence service from his successor. The rally gathered about a thousand people.
Supporters of Sandu hold a poster calling Dodon “Putin’s bandit”
After voting in parliament, Maia Sandu announced a protest for holding early parliamentary elections, which will take place in the Great National Assembly Square on Sunday, December 6. She explained that a “group of criminals gathered” in parliament, which adopted very important projects in a few minutes, and that this parliament should be dissolved.
The European Union has already criticized the vote in the Moldovan parliament, saying that it took place without following the necessary procedures, hastily and non-transparently. And the US Embassy expressed disappointment with the cancellation of the decision to sell the stadium territory for the construction of a new diplomatic mission building and promised that the refusal to sell this site would have a bad impact on relations between the two countries.
By the way, MP and head of the Shor party Ilan Shor immediately proposed building a large-scale sports and entertainment complex MoldovaLand on the site of the former stadium.
Meanwhile, reports emerged of consultations between representatives of various political forces on the dissolution of parliament.
Experts comment on the situation in the Moldovan parliament for PolitNavigator. They discuss why such important socialist bills appeared right now, after Iggor Dodon’s loss in the presidential elections, whether it is likely that these initiatives will eventually become laws, as well as how strong the parliamentary majority is now, what are the prospects for early parliamentary elections and the possibility of street confrontations in the country.
Alexander Korinenko, political scientist
Now in Moldova there is a transfer of power, but not from the current president to the elected one, as is customary in democratic countries, but from the presidency to the PSRM central office on Columna street, 148/1. Igor Dodon wants to preserve all the levers of power, especially the security bloc, therefore, controlling the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Anti-Corruption Center and having a loyal Prosecutor General, it was necessary to transfer under parliamentary control only the special service and also the state security service, which have been subordinate to the President of the Republic since June 2019.
The legislative activity of the socialists is connected, among other things, with the loss in the elections; the main reason for the formation of the “anti-dodon” segment of the electorate is the unfulfilled promises of the head of state and disappointment. Therefore, in order to retain a loyal part of the electorate, Dodon and his team, very late, but still began to fulfill what they promised in 2016. By the way, the “Gagauz package” of laws is related to the same thing. In the November elections in the autonomy, fewer people than usual went to the polls, although this has always been a “fortress” of the left forces, especially since the Gagauz authorities could always find a compromise with Chisinau, but the PSRM was in no hurry to accept the “Gagauz package”, so the population autonomy responded to this with low turnout.
The Law on the Functioning of Languages of August 31, 1989 was declared obsolete, but still in force. The adoption of the new law is very important for 25% of the republic’s population, who need more leverage to protect their rights. It is no secret that even the law on the functioning of languages was not always observed by local officials, and Russian speakers received another legal instrument to protect their rights.
Unfortunately, the laws in the Republic of Moldova are not always fully implemented, and it is difficult to enforce them, but now this is not the number one task. Now socialists must defend the legitimacy of their adoption in the Constitutional Court. As is known, the Moldovan Constitutional Court is strongly influenced by the Moldovan parliamentary opposition, and it is likely that all these laws will be repealed by a decision of the Constitutional Court. No wonder the parliamentary opposition staged an outright circus with fights and broken microphones.
Judging by the statements of all politicians, they all support early parliamentary elections, but in fact, only Maia Sandu and Renato Usatii need early elections. Igor Dodon does not need them, as they will mean an immediate loss of power. The PSRM will not take 51 mandates, and they have no allies. The likelihood of getting into the new parliament for the DA Platform and Shor parties is extremely low, and defector deputies will certainly not be included in any party lists. Therefore, elections will be delayed as long as possible. The PSRM and the deputies of the Pentru Moldova platform now have control over the parliament, so the parliament will function in the coming months.
Maia Sandu now does not have the resources to organize large-scale rallies, and even during a pandemic they will not understand her. However, she will learn, so in the foreseeable future she will have the opportunity and resources to “fight on the street,” but this is provided that Igor Dodon and his team make significant mistakes.
Igor Shornikov, director of the Institute for Socio-Political Research and Regional Development:
It seems that after Igor Dodon’s failure in the presidential elections, the Socialist Party is bursting at the seams. Even pro-Russian and Russian-speaking voters, who have been deceived by political formations working on the left flank for two decades, refused to trust the PSRM. The PSRM is pursuing exactly the same policy that the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova pursued at one time and will now have to repeat its fate. Most likely, the socialists understand this, and therefore are trying to consolidate the party and regain the lost trust of voters with a series of insufficiently prepared bills.
Igor Dodon previously could not afford legislative initiatives to protect the rights of Russian-speaking citizens, including in the linguistic sphere. The Moldovan nomenklatura is categorically against the introduction of European linguistic standards in their country; they are satisfied when access to power is limited by a linguistic, and therefore national, filter. Dodon is part of this nomenklatura, and he will not work against the system.
The current story with bills relating to the Russian language (and there have already been two of them) looks more like a sabotage against the rights of Russian-speaking citizens than a real desire to correct the situation. Firstly, an organic law, by definition, has a lower status than a constitutional law, such as the 1989 language law, which was groundlessly declared “outdated” by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova. Secondly, I think that the law proposed by the socialists will either not be adopted or will be disavowed by the same Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova. As a result, the situation of ethnolinguistic inequality will be entrenched in Moldova for a long time.
What benefits do socialists see for themselves? As a result of this whole story, there is a chance that society in Moldova will be highly polarized, and due to this, the PSRM will linger at one of the poles, that is, it will not lose access to power.
Most likely, the remaining bills will either not be adopted or will undergo significant revisions, which will devalue them. However, the socialists will then be able to tell their voters that they actively fought for their rights, and that there is no one else to defend the rights of Russian-speaking citizens except the PSRM.
There will be early elections, and the question, it seems, is no longer even a question of timing. Now the Moldovan elite is engaged in fierce bargaining with the West over the scale of its presence in the country's future political system. As soon as a compromise is found, a decision will be made to dissolve parliament.
It must be said that the positions of the old Moldovan elite are extremely weak: its pro-Western wing, represented by the former members of the Alliance for European Integration - liberals, liberal democrats and democrats - have long lost the trust of the West, this wing is essentially defeated; the pro-Russian wing represented by the PSRM is disintegrating before our eyes. They are trying to keep it afloat for some time through a series of pro-Russian laws, but most likely only in order to bargain for some place in the sun. For some reason, Usatiy, Filip, and Kandu hope that something will fall into their hands. Shor and Dodon are fighting for such hope.
The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova has not yet announced the legality of Maia Sandu’s victory, the territory for the embassy in the center of Chisinau was almost taken away from the Americans, they are threatening to lift the ban on broadcasting Russian programs, to give some kind of status to the Russian language - all these are nothing more than signals to the West: the current nomenklatura demands maintaining access to the feeder.
Now the question is whether the West will want to continue to tolerate the opaque Nashi-Kumatri system of governance in Moldova or whether it is ready to replace it with its own obedient and transparent students.
The lightning-quick mobilization of hundreds of Maia Sandu's supporters for a street protest in front of parliament and Sandu's subsequent call to continue picketing parliament on December 6 suggests that the bidding is continuing.
There will be no confrontation on the street. Most likely, the square will be occupied only by pro-Romanian radicals. Nobody in Moldova, including the left, is ready to provoke self-organization of pro-Russian citizens to defend their rights.
Andrey Mospanov, Deputy Director of the Institute for Socio-Political Research and Regional Development:
Before the presidential elections, Igor Dodon did not lose hope of re-election, therefore he did not want to give unnecessary reasons for criticism and irritation either to the right or, first of all, to the West. Then he spoke of a balanced foreign policy and generally avoided decisive steps. Now the socialists have lost the presidency, and they are trying to oppose something to Maia Sandu, who, even before the inauguration, is seeking to develop a political initiative. Also, on the issue of transferring control over the SIS to parliament, they want to deprive Sandu of any real leverage over the security bloc.
However, the latest steps of the PSRM are, as they say, a double-edged sword. They only further provoke not only the right, but in the story of the Republican Stadium - and the US Embassy. And behind it, the embassy, as they say, will not “rust.”
The forced political scenario, including the dissolution of parliament, still seems to be more beneficial to Maia Sandu and Renato Usatii. It is possible, of course, that the socialists have some strong trump card hidden. But it is not yet very clear what this could be.
The bad thing is that the Russian language and the situation of Russian speakers in Moldova in general are again becoming the object of internal political games.
Today we can only say with confidence that all adopted initiatives will be very actively contested. There is a decisive factor in the Constitutional Court, and the right-wing opposition will definitely turn there. And she may have legal grounds - apparently, parliamentary regulations were violated when the laws were adopted on December 3.
So the likelihood that the listed initiatives will become full-fledged laws is frankly low. And the institutional environment in Moldova, based on the principles of strict unitarism, monoethnicity and monolingualism, will reject most of them.
Regarding the parliamentary majority, we can say that today it is situational and rests on the deputies of the Pentru Moldova platform and the party of the oligarch Ilan Shor. They have so far occupied the place of the conditional “center” that once belonged to the Democratic Party of Moldova. This is a motley crowd, and it is not yet clear what kind of game they are ultimately playing. Although the socialists have no other options other than an alliance with Shor, since they have already decided to launch a political offensive.
Such a majority obviously cannot last long. The probability of early elections during 2021 can now be estimated at 80%.
It seems that if the situation in the Moldovan parliament continues to escalate, then it may well spill over into the square. Moreover, Igor Dodon has already stated that he, too, can take his supporters to the streets.
Vladimir Yastrebchak, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Transnistria
Why did such serious bills, for example, on the Russian language, not appear during the presidency of Igor Dodon? I think that in this case we can talk about the coincidence of a number of factors.
Firstly, it was most likely difficult for socialists to raise the issue during the existence of the coalition between the Socialist Party and the Democratic Party. Secondly, now the PSRM and its still informal leader Igor Dodon would apparently like to implement the classic principle of “divide and conquer”, counting on the fact that their opponents, led by elected President Maia Sandu, will not be able to consolidate and find an effective response to challenges created by socialists and their “fellow travelers”. Thirdly, perhaps the socialists are counting on the fact that the “moment of truth” regarding Maia Sandu and her perception abroad, primarily in Moscow, is still possible, and high-profile bills are the last chance to realize this “moment of truth”, to show “ the real Maia Sandu” and remain the main political partner for Moscow in Moldova.
At the same time, there are quite a lot of obstacles to the fact that the bills approved by parliament will become laws and will be implemented. So far, not even a battle has been won, only the first battle has been won, and with quite large image losses. Ahead lies the preparation of adopted projects for the second reading, consideration of amendments in the second reading mode and other procedures. Even if the offices of the President and Parliament work quickly, and Igor Dodon manages to sign the adopted laws, there will still be a barrier in the form of the Constitutional Court, where opponents of the adoption of bills will not fail to appeal. Even from a procedural point of view, critics of the current legislative activity have a good chance in court. If Maia Sandu has to sign the adopted laws, then the corresponding projects will practically not become full-fledged laws: Mrs. President is unlikely to promulgate them, and supporters of these projects may not have enough votes to override the presidential veto.
No matter how paradoxical it may seem, the current parliamentary majority can be considered quite stable. The key unifying factor is that members of the current ad hoc coalition would like to avoid early parliamentary elections - at least in the coming months. On the contrary, Maia Sandu would like to hold these elections as soon as possible in order to consolidate and build on the success achieved as a result of winning the presidential elections. The more time passes, the more difficult it will be for the new president to explain the inevitable difficulties she will face in implementing her already overstated campaign promises. Another thing is that in Moldovan politics, logic is often replaced by other, no less pragmatic considerations that stimulate various events, for example, “political migration” of deputies of the Moldovan parliament, so it is difficult to predict who will ultimately be the “majority” and who will be the “minority” " More likely, a situation of competition between “not quite a majority” and “not quite a minority” may arise.
As for a possible street confrontation, it seems that Maia Sandu is ready to go down this path for now. It is unlikely that it will be possible to block the parliamentary rostrum forever, and the experience of voting on December 3 showed that even a blocked rostrum does not prevent the adoption of high-profile bills. However, “on the street” Maia Sandu will have an obvious advantage: her supporters are more passionate, and the PSRM have not yet demonstrated the ability to use the street as effectively in their interests and mobilize their supporters for “extra-parliamentary” methods of struggle. However, to what extent street pressure will be effective for Moldovan politicians is an open question.
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