Nicușor Dan’s Low-Key Visit, Election Updates and Plaha's Return to Politics(?)
Weekly Roundup: August 14, 2025
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Now, on to the news…
Nicușor Dan Visits Moldova on a Personal Holiday
This week Romanian President Nicușor Dan visited Moldova on a personal holiday. He had no official meetings scheduled but spent time with his family and some of Moldova’s leadership engaging in recreational and cultural activities.
President Dan attended the “Festival of Wolves” at Orhei Vechi with Maia Sandu last weekend. There they posed for photos with attendees, ate traditional foods and watched the concert.
The next day President Dan went for a hike with his family at the country Presidential Residence at Condrița. He was joined by Speaker of Parliament Igor Grosu for the hike.
Author’s Analysis: In the context of the coming electoral campaign, President Nicușor Dan’s visit and appearances alongside President Sandu and PAS Leader Speaker Grosu sends a clear message of support. That said, an official visit or visit in the context of a national holiday involving a speech, etc would have been much more typical. This visit appears designed to highlight both presidents’ “everyman” aesthetic. Ever since President Sandu made international news for flying low-cost wearing sneakers and only carrying a cabin bag back in 2022, she’s stood out as an unusually modest European leader. The signal from this visit is that Romania and Moldova both have such leaders and that this is the future - while the stuffier suits are the past.
Election Updates
Over the course of the last 2 weeks parties, blocs and independent candidates continued to register with the Central Election Commission (CEC), collect signatures and get approval to run in the elections. As of August 10th there were already 19 independent candidates registered - an all time record. Many are relative unknowns, but some are familiar faces such as Andrei Nastase and Olesea Stamate.
In Moldova’s modern history as an independent nation 131 people have run for parliament as independents and none have been elected. There are 2 reasons for this. Firstly, there is a 2% threshold for an independent candidate to overcome. This means, that per seat they need to get roughly 2x as many votes as someone on a party list would need to gain a seat. Secondly, with a proportional representation system and the need to form a governing majority the idea of a swing, or “golden” vote is statistically incredibly unlikely. Serious politicians who want to have an impact in parliament therefore join parties. While the motivations of each candidate are not clear, experts have largely surmised that the main goal here is to siphon off pro-EU votes to weaken PAS.
After a delay, Vladimir Voronin’s Communist Party has chosen to join the “Patriotic Bloc of Socialists, Heart and Future of Moldova” which is now the "Patriotic Bloc of Socialists, Communists, Heart and Future of Moldova." This was announced at a joint press conference by the 4 party leaders:
The bloc’s symbol will be the Socialist’s star combined with the Communist hammer and sickle and the “Heart of Moldova” heart. Mr. Tarlev apparently wasn’t included in the graphic design team.
The press conference however lent a less-official symbol to the bloc as Mr. Voronin has continued to appear less-than-enthusiastic about this whole arrangement. In addition to the slightly more casual shirt seen in the photo above, he was also wearing sandals at the event1 - launching many memes.
Plahotniuc Extradition Updates
As we last wrote on July 31st, Vladimir Plahotniuc’s extradition from Greece to Moldova has become contentious and somewhat confusing. His lawyers continue to insist that he wants a speedy extradition and that the Moldovan authorities are dragging their feet. They imply (or state outright) that this is out of fear of Plahotniuc’s return.
PAS MP Lilian Carp responded to this accusation saying:
"Plahotniuc's lawyers say that the Chisinau authorities are deliberately delaying his extradition and that Moldova is allegedly afraid of his return. But this is not true. Plahotniuc was arrested due to his own stupidity. No one is afraid of him - he will answer for all the mess he has created in Moldovan politics.”
The Ministry of Justice also stated unequivocally that they are proceeding with the extradition as quickly as possible. The Ministry filed a first extradition request on August 4th while the Prosecutor General’s office filed an additional request on August 8th. They explained that the procedure takes time for a few reasons - namely:
Each case requires a different extradition request. Under the agreements in place Moldova can only try him on cases referenced in the extradition request and agreed to by the Greek authorities. This is a problem because…
Plaha2 is wanted in lots of cases. Some are already in the trial process, others are working their way through the system. These cases are extremely complex and have lots of documentation and paperwork. This is a problem because…
Everything needs to be translated into Greek. It must be a good month for any Romanian-Greek certified translators.
On August 13th a Greek court held a preliminary hearing in the extradition case. At the hearing, the court agreed to move forward with the extradition. This is only the first step as the final decision must be made by the Greek Ministry of Justice. Plahotniuc did not attend the court hearing personally, a decision that his lawyers explained was made strategically to speed up the process. Under Greek law if he attended a translator would need to be present. Given the August holidays none were available so he chose not to attend court in order to allow the hearings to go forward.
President of the Superior Council of Magistracy (SCM), Serghei Caraman has stated that Moldova’s judicial system is ready to receive Plahotniuc. He stated that on arrival he will be taken into custody and held… but he also admitted that this might not last for long. Under Moldovan law preventative detention must be relaxed to house arrest or judicial control unless prosecutors can prove that the defendant is a high flight risk, or risks committing new crimes if released3. Given the complexity and length of trials like these his lawyers will certainly argue for lenient treatment while things proceed.
Plaha’s Return to Politics
In parallel with his dates in court, Plahotniuc has been reactivating elements of his political influence network - largely through his lawyers. It started with the opening of a new facebook page for the fugitive oligarch where his lawyers post statements on his behalf. The most recent, posted on August 13th, is a voice recording that appears to have been made via a prison phone system4.
At the same time a mass social media campaign has launched that glorifies the fugitive oligarch and spreads sponsored posts showing how great it was to have him leading the country. Andrei Rusu from Watchdog explained it as follows:
"the volume and synchronization show the existence of a team running a multi-account infrastructure, with copy and video prepared centrally, testing reactions through targeted ads."
Much of the campaign is run via fake accounts such as Esther Bush or Jose Perry. These profiles are newly created, have AI generated avatars, use disposable email addresses and have US phone numbers5. Pages like these and many others start running paid advertisements promoting Plaha and saying things like "Those from PAS will run like rats across the country," etc. At the time of writing the profiles are still active but facebook has limited the ability to run ads on some of them.
Watchdog and other experts have speculated that these are simply "local node[s] in a propaganda network connected either directly to the pro-Șor ecosystem or as part of a dedicated campaign to whitewash Plahotniuc’s image."
Reactivating Political Parties
On August 6th Plahotniuc posted to his facebook (through lawyers) calling on his old party to reassemble writing:
"to all my former colleagues in the Government and Parliament, our former and current mayors, councilors, civil servants, numerous supporters of the past years, to people in the public and private sectors who do not agree with the abuses and injustices that are happening. Let's unite and create a strong, determined, professional front that will overthrow this incompetent government and send it to the garbage dump of history. Let's rebuild our team that knew how to preserve the stability and security of the country and its citizens before the advent of the "yellow times"
On August 12th the Modern Democratic Party of Moldova announced that they would participate in the parliamentary elections. Party leader Boris Foca made the announcement with the following statement:
"As president of the PDMM, I announce to you that the party I represent, which is directly descended from the former Democratic Party and the former democratic government from 2016 to 2019, has decided to fully participate in the elections of September 28.”
I’ll explain the “direct decent” in a short footnote aside6.
There are indications that PDMM is working to unite with the other PDM successor party - PSDE led by Tudor Ulianovschi.
Asked if Plahotniuc would join or lead this party Boris Foca said that “Mr. Plahotniuc has other challenges today.”
Meanwhile, in his audio recording Plahotniuc stated on August 14th that:
"In addition to the desire to justify myself in Moldovan courts, I am motivated to return to my homeland by continuing my political activity.”
Other Stories to Watch
Things have been busy - here’s a quick roundup of a few other important stories to keep track of:
Trump’s tariffs came into effect August 7th. The United States has now levied a 25% tariff on goods imported from Moldova. On July 31st the Ministry of Economy had announced that they asked for a grace period but that they did not get any response. The country now faces the 3rd highest rate in Europe after Switzerland (39%) and Serbia (35%). The 25% rate is substantially higher than the EU’s 15%.
Former judge Mihail Diaconu was found dead of a single gunshot wound to the head. The judge had failed vetting and was the subject of 2 criminal cases involving bribery and influence peddling. Police are investigating the death as a likely suicide.
The National Agency for Energy Regulation (ANRE) voted to strip MoldovaGaz of its license to supply natural gas. The decision came after MoldovaGaz failed to comply with a new law requiring it to unbundle its supply and transit activities. State enterprise Energocom will take over supplying the 800,000 customers served by MoldovaGaz on September 1st. Customers will not have to make any changes and will simply see a new name on their bills. MoldovaGaz’s majority shareholder, Russia’s GazProm reacted furiously. The company says that it will defend itself in court and accused Moldova of forcing this reorganization via the new law7. They also spread numerous lies about how this will drive up prices8.
The National Bank of Moldova (NBM) reduced the base rate from 6.5% to 6.25%. They announced that inflation is cooling in alignment with their forecasts and that they will begin to reduce rates accordingly.
The sandals became very popular on both facebook and tiktok, but also crossed into mainstream TV with Renato Usatii presenting Voronin with a pair of shoes.
I should probably introduce “Plaha” as a short form for Plahotniuc. During the time of state capture Plaha ran the country but he did so from the shadows. It was not uncommon for people to refer to him like Voldomort as “he who shall not be named.” Such was the fear of this man that many would literally not say his name. Protestors took to calling him Plaha as a derogatory shortening of his name - both to mock him and to show that they were not afraid of him.
Objectively, a man who previously fled the country, has at least 17 known ID cards under half a dozen identities, has access to nearly unlimited financial resources and who previously employed a small private army of hundreds of bodyguards while he was near *dictator* of Moldova would be a bit of a flight risk… not to mention a risk of adding more crimes to his rap sheet. Then again, Moldovan judges have a long history of shrugging at evidence like this and letting people escape (or just run wild).
It’s rather scratchy and does not come off as intimidating as he probably hoped.
I called both numbers from these profiles. One was disconnected and the other was answered by a clearly confused man who was not a woman named Jose Perry.
Plahotniuc’s party was the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM). Back in 2020 a group of 6 PMs “left” PDM to form something that was called “Pro-Moldova.” At the time they claimed to be in disagreement with PDM, but it was widely understood as a scheme to create a more palatable political puppet for Plaha that was still under his control. A number of MPs “defected” to this party from PDM and one Socialist MP also defected (assumed to have been bought), but he was then kidnapped (presumably by the Socialists) and returned a week later to announce that he had rethought things and would stay a Socialist. Following the fall of Plaha the party largely went dormant but quietly changed its name to the Modern Democratic Party (PDM) in 2023. Party leader Boris Foca noted that PDM was now available and that’s why he made the change. The new PDMM formulation seems to have happened just this past week. PDM has one other successor party - PSDE which is the more direct successor to Plaha’s original political project PDM. Confused yet?
Yup.
Nope.