Welcome back to Moldova Matters! Subscribe to get our Weekly Roundup and other content sent right to your email! And consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work at Moldova matters. For just $5 / month, the price of a nice coffee, you can support this work and help us expand into even better content!
Elections Roundup
Polls!!
Finally we have a pretty solid poll to write about. Watchdog.md and the Institute of Public Policy released a 3rd poll this election season. But this one is not like the first two. Their previous polls were conducted over the phone and sought to call a representative sample of the population. Various experts have said that this is imperfect because it skews the participants based on who has phones and who answers calls from strangers in Moldova. This latest poll is a door to door national poll. Something considered the gold standard in Moldovan polling.
So the poll showed 50.9% support for PAS and 30.5% support for the Communist Socialist Block. No other parties attained the thresholds needed to enter Parliament. While more detailed results from the poll have yet to be released, the outcome is very clear - this is a two way race right now and Usatii and Shor will need to pull off upsets to make up ground and get in at all. Furthermore, PAS may be able to pull off a very serious majority in Parliament all on their own.
While these results are very interesting, and the methodology speaks highly to the trustworthiness of the poll, we must still remember that polling in Moldova should be taken under advisement, but not fully trusted in.
TV Debates - Who are All These People!?
For the past weeks, local channels have been conducting TV debates between the parties participating in the election. Generally, the format is that there are 4 party representatives on a given night and they get questions from a moderator as well as some back and forth. Critically, the law stipulates that all parties must have equal opportunity in these debates no matter what polls say. So while all credible polls only show that 4 parties have any chance at all of getting into the election, there are 22 parties and 1 independent candidate on the ballot. All must get equal debate time. You might guess where this is going…
So it’s a mess. Here are a few highlights from the week. The leader of the Party of Regions Alexander Kalinin said his party proposed criminal liability to anyone who calls the "Moldovan language" Romanian. For context, the Party of Regions is a fringe, ultra-pro-Russian party. When the host questioned this policy proposal, Kalinin responded angrily asking the host what language she spoke. She responded “Romanian.” Kalinin became furious telling her she is "making money in our country while violating the constitution." They cut to commercial and apparently in that time Kalinin became more agitated and threw a bottle of water at the tv on set. When he returned from break he refused to talk in Romanian (despite his party’s pre-debate agreement with the network) and only answered in Russian.
Another choice moment of the debates came when the only independent candidate on the ballot, Vyacheslav Valko, was set to make his appearance. Instead, Vyacheslav Platon showed up to speak for him. As we have noted many times in Moldova Matters, Mr. Platon is an alleged gangster and pretty much every other criminal title you can imagine. All “alleged” because he seems to slide through the courts time and again. It was rather surprising that he was speaking for Mr. Vyacheslav Valko who’s campaign slogan is “against all liars.” Mr Platon dodged any questions about his role in the Theft of the Billion and instead used his time to attack President Sandu as much as possible. Asked about Valko’s past association with Plahotniuc, Platon said “everyone makes mistakes.” A notable moment of the night came when Lawyer Stefan Gligor of the Party of Change said his Party’s campaign is about justice and he would focus entirely on putting Platon in jail.
But taking the cake for absurd debate performances goes to Vlad Bilețchi, the leader of the AUR party who refused categorically to say who his father is. Ok, some context, recently, a Romanian news site has alleged that Vlad Bilețchi was actually born Vladimir Doboș but changed his name so he would not be associated with his father Ruslan Doboș. The older Doboș is a close associate of, you guessed it, Mr. Platon. Ruslan Doboș was the director of the Asito Insurance company until he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for embezzlement and money laundering. He was later released 11 years early and is now being investigated for bribing a judge with 50,000 euros to gain his freedom. So the press alleges that Vlad Bilețchi is really Vlad Doboș and the AUR campaign is being funded by his father Ruslan Doboș and Mr. Platon. When confronted in the debate with these questions Vlad Bilețchi / Doboș categorically denied that Ruslan Doboș is his father. But when asked “who is your father, what does he do, and what is his name?” he said he will not answer that question. Meanwhile, following the debate, investigative outlet ZdG was able to prove from public documents that Vlad Bilețchi is Vlad Doboș and that he was lying.
We have to admire the political savvy of someone willing to go on TV, lie blatantly in a way that is easily disprovable, and then fail to offer up any plausible alternative father for yourself. It has to take a certain amount of self confidence to think that the press was that dumb.
Ok, so why did we spend so much time talking about these debates if they were just a big mess? Well, the first thing to note is just how broken the process was. At no time were the 4 main electoral contenders debating each other. Or even the top 2 (PAS and Communist and Socialist Block). Every debate had lots of little parties no one has ever heard of throwing water bottles and things. This is actually by design. As we discussed last week, the Kremlin’s election interference budget of 11.5 million euros had over 4 million euros carved off for “friendly candidates.” And that was during a Presidential election with far fewer candidates. Many of these parties are little “companies” that simply spring up around election time to figure out what role they are expected to play. They get instructions from foriegn actors or local oligarchs, and they suit up. They have become fantastic play actors in a drama designed to keep the people from hearing from real candidates on real issues and to generally muddy the waters. We can speculate that Platon’s appearance on the campaign stage is related to this. He wanted to get involved, so he just needed to find an unscrupulous party or candidate (or both) to let him in. Commenting on these (and other) electoral actions of Mr. Platon, President Sandu noted “the thieves have united,” referring to the sudden alliance of oligarchic parties and the Socialist block.
“New Historical Choice Party” Gets its Day in Court
Some time ago we discussed the fact that a minor party called New Historical Choice (NOI) which was founded in 1992 and abandoned since 2013 suddenly sprang back to life and changed its name to the Party of Alternatives and Opportunities (PAS). This was a transparent attempt by someone to attempt to create another PAS party on the ballot to perhaps cause some people to vote for the wrong party by accident. The CEC actually refused this name change on a technicality but NOI has taken them to court weeks before the election in order to try and force the issue. Since ballots are already being printed and the CEC has already shown broad willingness to defy the courts this doesn’t seem headed anywhere. But it’s another strong example of the dirty electoral tactics at play in this race.
AUR Under Scrutiny for Election Financing Irregularities
The Union of Unionists has some noted accounting problems. Journalists, and the CEC, have noted that the party fails to account for it’s spending properly. In particular, they are driving giant golden busses around the country in the campaign but report neither the buses nor gas and related expenditures. The party leader has said that “he doesn’t know what that’s about, it's the party treasurer’s job,” which is not all that helpful in clarifying what may be a crime.. Apparently the Security and Information Service SIS (Moldova’s foriegn and domestic intelligence agency) is also concerned and submitted a letter to the CEC claiming a “reasonable suspicion of the interference of external actors” in the AUR campaign. Specifically they are focusing on financing and personnel from Romania. In the eyes of SIS this may constitute a national security issue as external forces are trying to manipulate the election.
Trouble for the Socialists in Gagauzia?
The Bashkhan of Gagauzia (like a governor), Irina Vlah, spoke this week at the EU summit for the rights of minority peoples in Strasbourg. There, she blamed the failure of Moldova to develop as well as its European neighbors squarely at the feet of the entrenched political class in Moldova. Specifically, she said that the European Union could be a strong example for Moldova as it developed a multicultural and tolerant society. This speech was closely watched in Moldova because Irina Vlah has long been a staunch supporter of Mr. Dodon’s Socialists party. In the last presidential election Mr. Dodon got 64,000 of the possible 68,000 votes cast in Gagauzia. This election, Irina Vlah has not endorsed any candidate and distanced herself from the Socialists. This speech, with a ringing endorsement for the EU, seems very much like a political pragmatist looking to where the winds are blowing and positioning herself for coming changes.
COVID-19 Update
The COVID-19 Situation continues to look promising with a 7 day rolling average of 60 new cases a day and 2 deaths. But the Ministry of Health continues to sound alarm bells about the almost inevitability of the Delta variant coming to Moldova. The Ministry discussed their plans for dealing with this challenge stressing that continuing to require PCR tests at the border is some level of defense. But they also stressed that Moldova does not have the capability to detect this variant with local labs and that they have sent some samples to Germany already for analysis. Critically, they noted the WHO’s recent announcement that while the original COVID virus took more than 10 minutes to infect someone at a distance of 1 meter, the Delta variant takes 5-10 seconds. This has led to the Ministry and the Interim Prime Minister to strongly encourage all citizens to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
State of the Vaccine Campaign
This weekend, Chisinau hosted another very successful vaccine marathon with over 4000 people getting vaccinated in 2 days. The marathon offered Astrazeneca, Sinovac and Sputnik V, but most people seemed to come for Sputnik. The marathon ran out of Sputnik doses after their stock of 3000 was exhausted but the Orthodox Church donated another 1000 doses from their allotment so that people waiting in line could get the shot. Mr. Dodon also briefly waited in line but opted not to get vaccinated saying that he wanted others to go first. He is still the only major political leader not to get vaccinated publically as an example to his supporters. The Ministry of Health noted that Moldova is low on Sputnik doses at this time but is negotiating to buy 700,000 more doses. Unfortunately, it is not known when these could be delivered because of questions of Russia’s production capacity. Overall, Moldova has received around 1 million doses of all vaccines and given out 700,000 to date.
What about Summer Travel?
The EU has created a list of 10 countries whose citizens will be allowed to enter the EU based on case rates and Moldova is on it! The final decision will be made country by country but the EU guidance is a strong vote of confidence. President Sandu announced that in addition to this the EU is likely to accept Moldova’s vaccine certificates to allow seamless future travel for any vaccines that the EU has approved. So that would be Astrazeneca and Pfizer.
Economic News
Heat Waves and Crappy Roads
The Government has restricted trucks from operating on many of the country’s roads between 10 am and 8 pm on any days where the temperature exceeds 30 C (86 F). This is because the substandard asphalt used in construction of many roads literally “melts” in the summer and the weight of the trucks cuts grooves into the road much like a dirt road after heavy rain. This phenomenon is not new, but shows the critical effect that corruption (skimming from construction projects) continues to have on the economy. With factories working in “just in time” supply chains you will find many companies reworking their shifts and hours to account for night trucking and deliveries.
Winners Take All (or Most)
The think tank “Expert Grup” released a study this week that showed government budget and investment programs were directed significantly more into cities and regions where the local political leaders shared a party with the national political leaders. Overall, mayors and towns aligned with the ruling coalition received 40% more funding than mayors who were not. For capital investments (roads, etc) this is much worse with 133% more for towns and 640% more for cities. The think tank asked an unsettling question, what kind of country is it where the “Party” not the government builds roads? In order to highlight their point they showed that in road construction projects in Orhei, where the Shor party is in power, party officials literally managed the contracting and road construction rather than civil servants. This helps explain why mayors are the most pragmatic political actors and frequently change parties in order to serve their communities. A sad, but understandable outcome from such a system.
Corruption Report
Platon… Again
While Mr. Platon was doing TV debates for his friend, the Security and Information Service SIS alleges that they can prove his connection to yet another company involved in the theft of the billion. Platon denies this and says this company was only used to “move money for him.” While the intricate web of allegations against Platon is vast and sometimes not worth noticing day to day, we can see that there are definite signs that with a new Government and Prosecutor General, this man may be in serious trouble. Perhaps that is why he is campaigning so hard in this election.
The Hotel National Scandal Continues
The fight between Deputy Mayor Cironda and Mayor Ceban has reached a sort of “intermission” where Cironda’s daily duties and functions have been stripped from his office, but he hasn’t been fired. The Deputy Mayor decided to continue pursuing the corruption regarding the Hotel National and held a public meeting and consultation about the plans to demolish it and build a huge new shopping center. In this public consultation, a large group of people attended and pretended not to be affiliated with each other and called themselves “simple citizens.” This group heckled the Deputy Mayor and shouted down other citizens trying to make their voices heard. The leader of this group was later identified as an activist in the Shor party… lending further credibility to the suspicion that Mr. Shor is behind this shady dealing. Cironda has vowed to continue putting the spotlight on the improprieties in this building process and fighting to keep the project from going forward.
Ending on a High Note!
This week, President Sandu presented the Moldovan flag to the country’s Olympic team heading to Tokyo. Moldova is sending 18 athletes this year! According to IOC guidelines, countries may select either an individual to bear the flag or a pair - provided there is one man and one woman. Moldova has selected archers Dan Olaru and Alexandra Myrka to carry the nation’s flag to Tokyo this year. Good luck team Moldova!!
And consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work at Moldova matters. For just $5 / month, the price of a nice coffee, you can support this work and help us expand into even better content!
Yes, David, really grateful for your work.
Thanks David. Excellent writing and coverage, as always.