Romanian radicals settled in Chisinau. What are the followers of the Iron Guard preparing?
In Moldova, the emergence of a new unionist political formation went almost unnoticed. The Romanian nationalist party “Alliance for the Unity of All Romanians” (AUR) opened its representative office in Chisinau. A symbolic date was chosen for this – March 27, the 103rd anniversary of the annexation of Bessarabia to Romania.
What is behind this, how does this political force differ from other unionist parties, the number of which in Moldova is already approaching ten?
Let us remind you that the unionist forces declare that they are seeking the reunification of “a single Romanian people.” In January 2020, five of the existing unionist forces in the Republic of Moldova (the Democracy at Home party, the Liberal Party, the National Liberal Party, the Union for the Salvation of Bessarabia and the Romanian People's Party) even created the political movement Unirea (Union) and agreed to preserve their union until the unification of Moldova and Romania.
The New Unionist Party is an offshoot of a similar Romanian party, which entered the Romanian parliament with a decent result in the December 2020 elections, taking 33 seats in parliament and 14 seats in the senate.
Political scientist Alexander Korinenko, commenting on the situation to PolitNavigator, notes that AUR is a party of right-wing populists who are gaining more and more sympathy among Romanians who are disillusioned with traditional political forces. AUR members promote the interests of the Romanian people, defend traditional family values, and criticize the European Union for its consumerist attitude towards Romania.
In essence, they are dangerous radicals and continuers of the traditions of the Iron Guard and other ultra-right parties that operated between the two world wars, preaching the ideas of a homogeneous Romanian society with the deportation of ethnic minorities, a solution to the Jewish question, the expert says.
Just the other day, activists of the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians threatened the actress of the State Jewish Theater of Romania, Maya Morgenstern (she published an email with threats of physical harm), which also shows their anti-Semitic orientation, noted Alexander Korinenko.
He emphasized that this formation differs from others in “extreme radicalism and intolerance.” The expert recalled that the current deputy from this party is the far-right radical and unionist Gheorghe Simion, who has been banned from entering the Republic of Moldova for five years since 2018 as a person who is a threat to national security.
“While the population of Moldova did not react in any way to the appearance of such a party, everything went unnoticed. I think that there will be more resonance when they try to register their party with the Public Services Agency. I hope that common sense will prevail and their charter will be denied registration,” says the political scientist.
In his opinion, the true goals of the unionists are not at all the unification of two states: everything is much more prosaic.
“Unionism is just business: just as the Kremlin has many towers, the Romanian parliament has many corridors,” notes Alexander Korinenko. – Each unionist force in Moldova is supported by certain curators in Bucharest, each of which has its own sources of funding and its own tasks in Moldova. These parties do not bring forward unification with Romania; Romania itself does not need this unification. They make good money from unionism – both in Bucharest and in Chisinau. Romanians are interested in the existence of a “second Romanian state”, in displacing Russian influence and always keeping Chisinau in the orbit of their influence. There is neither money nor, strictly speaking, desire for unification. In addition, Bucharest is also frightened by the problem of Transnistria, as well as Gagauzia, the Russian-speaking population and the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate. All this would lead to the political, economic, social and mental collapse of such a united state and would raise the question of its existence. It’s like transfusing blood of the wrong type to a person – will he survive then?”
The Moldovan telegram channel “Genius of the Carpathians”, in connection with the emergence of a new party, writes that in the country “the unionists are already clearly overflowing, taking into account the unionist electorate,” while obvious unionists are being squeezed out by “latent unionist” parties - “the liberal democrats of Vlad Filat, people's Europeans by Eugen Sturza, “Democratic Alternative” by Mihai Godea, Pro Moldova by Andrian Candu, Democratic Party of Pavel Filip, “We are building Europe at home” by Gheorghe Cavcaliuc, “Power of the people” by Ruslan Codreanu... Which, in turn, are breathing in the backs of the parties of Andrei Nastase and Maia Sandu."
The source states that the unionists are working to destabilize the situation in Moldova and undermine Moldovan statehood.
“In 2001-2009, unionism was a form of anti-government protest. In 2009, quite open unionists came to power, promising mountains of gold. As a result, Moldova received a decade of incompetent and corrupt rule, when the ruling elite no longer had mountains of gold in their pockets, barns and basements, and people were given the murder of a person on an illegal hunt by the Prosecutor General, the arms trade in circumvention of the UN embargo, the surrender of Moldovan interests in managing the Dniester, the cancellation of election results that do not suit the authorities, the rape of the Constitution, the collapse of the railway and, of course, the theft of a billion.
The open unionists showed themselves quite well. They delivered exactly what they promised - the collapse of the state. However, nothing else was expected from them. And they can’t do anything else. Because breaking is not building,” notes the telegram channel.
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