Weekly Roundup

March 20 - 26

Welcome back to Moldova Matters! In this weekly roundup we will check in with the top stories of the week in Politics and Economics. Subscribe to Moldova Matters to get our Weekly Roundup and other content sent right to your email!

So, March 23rd Passed - Time for Elections??

Not so fast, the political crisis continues but we are starting to get to the endgame. In the past Weekly Roundups we’ve discussed how on March 23rd Moldova passes the 90 day mark from the resignation of the Chicu government and that if there is no new government in place by this date it means that early elections are triggered. Unfortunately, the nature of a Constitutional Crisis is that things are often not as simple as they seem and this March 23rd date was taken more as a shorthand deadline for what is really a 3 part process. 

• Part 1: there is a 90 day clock from the resignation of the past government until a time where Parliament can be dissolved pending new elections. 

• Part 2: during that 90 day window Parliament must try, and fail, to invest a government 2 times. 

• Part 3: the President must consult with Parliamentary factions on the dissolution of the Parliament and holding of early elections. After this, the President may dissolve Parliament. 

This week, we have seen all 3 parts come together in rapid succession. First, the 90 day clock expired on March 23rd. Second, the PAS Candidate for Prime Minister Igor Grosu formed a cabinet and presented himself to the Parliament for a vote. The Socialists challenged this in the Constitutional Court but the court upheld Igor Grosu’s nomination. Next, Grosu presented his cabinet for a vote but the Socialists, Shor and Pentru Moldova parties walked out of Parliament denying a quorum and basically scuttling the whole affair.  This has been done in the past and the Constitutional Court has previously viewed this as equivalent to voting “no,” so this is Part 2 - there were two failed votes. Now, on Friday President Sandu has announced consultations with the factions on the dissolution of Parliament.  

So this whole complicated process has taken place - will there be elections?

We shall see. Mr. Dodon’s Socialists are very angry - calling this a “Constitutional Coup” about this process and claim they have the right to appoint a new candidate and try again. This will almost certainly fall back to the Constitutional Court to have the final say but most experts report that this process is constitutionally binding and time is up. Given all the twists and turns in this process so far it’s hard to know much for sure, but it does seem that an endgame is approaching. 

COVID-19 and Vaccines

Moldova’s 3rd wave continues with over 1600+ new cases a day on a 7 day rolling average and new records of 2132 cases in a single day and 44 deaths. As we have talked about in past Weekly Roundups the authorities have only imposed light restrictions and are avoiding total lockdowns. Localities decide for themselves whether to close schools and Chisinau closed its schools and went to online learning this week. 

What about vaccines?

In good news, 70% of the employees of Chisinau hospitals have now been vaccinated. This implies an improving vaccine uptake amongst doctors and a hopeful sign that vaccine hesitancy may fade as more people have friends and family get the jab. The acting Government has ramped up efforts to purchase vaccines allocating money for the purchase of 400,000 doses and receiving a loan of 23 million euros from the World Bank to buy even more. The hope is that these new doses will begin arriving in April. Meanwhile, the Romanian Prime Minister has announced plans to deliver 50,000 more doses to Moldova in the coming days. President Sandu has also held meetings with the Russian Ambassador asking for support via the Sputnik V vaccine. In spite of Mr. Dodon’s past meetings and this new effort we have no word on whether Sputnik V will be delivered to Moldova or under what conditions. One other new vaccine arrived in Moldova with 2000 doses of the Sinofarm vaccine being used to inoculate medical students helping on the front line of the pandemic. Overall, the pandemic situation remains grim but there seems to be hope that many more vaccines are on the way. One thing to watch for - India has almost totally shut down exports of vaccines as it deals with a deadly 2nd wave. As India’s huge factories power much of the COVAX program this is likely to deal a severe short term blow to global supply and may affect the timetables discussed above. 

Economy and Business

Despite the current economic and health crisis, Moldova’s long term economic crisis rests in the critical demographic situation in the country. Over the last 5 years the population of the country has declined by more than 200,000 people due to migration and a low birth rate. The UNDP predicts that another 240,000 will leave in the next 15 years, a huge number for a country of 2.6 million. No political party has put together a comprehensive plan to deal with this crisis. Most say that migration will be solved by solving their other priorities - fighting corruption, building infrastructure, etc. But numbers like this are an existential threat to the nation’s economy especially when considering the “brain drain” and loss of high skilled workers. 

Corruption

Theft of the Billion

Last week, Prosecutor General Stoyanoglo requested that Parliament remove parliamentary immunity from 2 of its members of the Shor Party. This week, Parliament voted to lift their immunity and one MP, accused of being part of the Theft of the Billion banking scandal has been detained. This remains the only major action on this massive case of corruption and theft to occur in the last year. Many MP’s expressed happiness in the Prosecutor General’s actions but dismay that so little has come from a multi year investigation to date. 

That’s it for this week! I hope you’ve been enjoying reading Moldova Matters! Subscribe to have this newsletter delivered to your inbox each week and follow us on facebook! I’ll be reaching out with questions for readers about what they want to hear more about, and about topic suggestions for Explainers and Deep Dives as well!