Ugly reality from pre-election Moldova: “Mafia” rules geopolitics

Something very ugly emerges beyond the gloss of the acclaimed success of one year rule of the democratic Alliance for European Integration in Moldova. It’s natural - the country plunges into parliamentary and presidential elections, which will determine not only the country’s inner and foreign policies for the next four years, but also may deeply shaken the state’s establishment. Hence, the question who gets the Presidency and who would control the Parliament and Government is turning into a kind of life-death dilemma. The main intrigue of the intensifying battle is the topic of “Mafia still governs Moldova”, publicly and loudly thrown in by Sergiu Mocanu, a longtime politician, a veteran of the military conflict with Transnistrian separatists awarded by the highest state Order of the Republic. With two months ahead of the elections, the campaign already gets signs of a bloodbath.

In one of his interviews earlier this year the former Prime Minister Ion Sturza has already pointed out that though the Government has changed and a democratic coalition has come to power, in fact the same business interests and doubtful personalities pull the strings and control the situation from behind. He didn’t get into details, that is why the declaration mostly remained unnoticed.

However, many did agree with this statement. The new democratic coalition managed to bring into the society more openness and a more active foreign policy aimed at European integration - probably from a Big Picture point of view that’s all on the positive side. Claims that the genius of the Alliance managed to stabilize the macroeconomic situation and save the country from collapsing are exaggerated, as this is mostly the merit of the West, which provided generous amounts of money as loans and grants for the economy, falling apart after 8 years of having being meticulously destroyed by the communist mismanagement.

Otherwise, the economic achievements after one year of democratic ruling are extremely modest, so much so that it represents a serious peril of communists returning back to power. Prices have risen, cost of living has increased, many sectors of the economy like construction, transportation, agriculture are depressed, whereas recent Russian embargo on imports of Moldovan wines and food products may become the last nail into the coffin, especially given the peak of wine and agricultural production season.

The worst of it all, is that no breakthrough ideas and solutions to remedy fast the economy have been provided.

The ruling Alliance also failed in recovering the justice system, which was especially important in order to eliminate the bad blood from the rotten corrupted system erected by communists. Without such a purification no further progress is possible. One of the most vivid examples that corruption is still all-penetrating, is the fact that cigarettes smuggling continues to flourish and according to a recent article in a leading German magazine, Moldovan illegal exports of cigarettes are flooding EU on wheels, planes and ships, having reached a volume of 2 billion MOL! Such situation continues to cast serious shadow of doubt onto the Alliance about its true aspirations and abilities to control the country.

So, what and who is to blame?

The Alliance for European Integration consists of four different parties, each of all pretending to be the most important and most responsible for the country’s future. The truth is however, slightly different.

We probably have to dismiss at once the Our Moldova part, as all polls show that it won’t pass the threshold during next elections. The other three parts of the Alliance - Democratic Party, Liberal Democratic Party and Liberal Party - will compete with communists for the Parliament and will also fight for the President’s position yet again.

Liberal Party, the leader of which Mihai Ghimpu is also acting President of Moldova, has no clear program and no serious political platform. Having become acting President and speaker of the Parliament as a result of coincidence of factors, Ghimpu mostly gives highest state orders by hundreds to the left and to the right and plays the pro-Romanian card, which most of the population of Moldova doesn’t like. Above that, his openly anti-Russian stands have led to another round of trade war, and the imposed embargo on many Moldovan products may cost the Liberal Party dare. We cannot name such a rule as responsible.

Liberal Democratic Party, led by Prime Minister Vlad Filat, is the only party that openly declared that it takes all responsibility for governing the country. The party has the best team and is rapidly growing in popularity, due to its sincere efforts to change the political, judicial and economic climate for better. If it keeps the same consistency and pace, this team may come to control the parliament, with Filat having the best chances for Presidency. This may potentially bring the so much desired stability into the country, and rapidly unfold real economic improvements, provided Filat as President promotes not another politician onto the Prime Minister position, but a good economist. Not to mention that such a scenario would be the best for Moldova’s foreign relations with Europe, Russia and USA.

Democratic Party has quite an ambiguous position. In short, it’s another “one man show”, because Democratic Party per se has not passed into the Parliament last year, unless Mr.Marian Lupu has defected from the communists and headed the Democratic Party. People voted for Lupu mostly, not as much for the party. Due to the opposition of communists, Lupu’s former colleagues, he was not elected President last year, and basically remained without any state portfolio. However, for a one man show party, they came to control a few most important offices of the country: the State Security Service, the all-mighty Ministry of the Economy, the very important National Commission for Financial Markets, and some others. Thus, on one side, Lupu officially is not responsible for anything, which comfortably leaves him maneuvering space for criticizing the Government headed by his main presidential rival Filat. On the other side, in fact, through his all-mighty Minister of Economy he basically controls all major economic decisions and has a wide influence over many other top state institutions.

Add to this his ability to speak and look nicely and you won’t be surprised that he is still considered main contender for the presidential winner, and some opinion polls give him an edge over Filat.

Former Soviet Union proved not once that people there tend to pity and ultimately vote for the deprived and oppressed. Lupu wisely turned his deprivation from the position of the president a year ago into an advantageous position of a free and unbound politician, whose program to rescue the country unfortunately can’t be implemented unless he is elected anew this year.

Under 8 years of communist rule, he has been Minister of the Economy and Commerce of Moldova, then Chairman of the Parliament, i.e. the second highest authority in the state! Until the last minute he was standing next to former President Voronin, also when they both calmly watched the April 7, 2009 massacre on the streets through the windows of Voronin’s office.

Thus, after he defected from the communists when they didn’t want to promote him as President, Lupu dragged along not only a big part of the communists’ electorate, but also a wide network of top state officers. That is why those who think that Mr.Lupu is an empty demagogue with no force behind are badly mistaken.

The problem is not that he is a strongly supported foxy politician, the problem is that according to recent explosive revelations made by Sergiu Mocanu, the forces that stay behind Lupu is the mafia that emerged and fortified during Voronin times. If all allegations are true, then a person named Vlad Plahotniuc, who raised from managing a pimp agency in the late 90-ies to heading of Petrom Moldova and then had a nickname of Voronin’s cashier, having amassed enormous fortunes through hostile takeover raids with the open abuse of Moldova’s security, prosecutors and police forces, is still pulling the ropes behind the scenes, using Marian Lupu as a puppet and the Democratic Party as a cover and protection from any eventual investigations. Mocanu has disclosed the corruption scheme, according to which the General Prosecutor, the Security Service, the Center for Combatting Organized Crime and Corruption, National Commission for Financial Markets, Ministry of Economy, the National Bank and other state services including top Judges are controlled by Plahotniuc. If this is true, then it becomes clear why the country is so corrupt and why no serious changes take place in Moldova.

The fact that, according to Mocanu, Plahotniuc has two advisors from FSB (the Russian security service), raises the “mafia issue” to a completely another level. If that is not enough, we have to remind that, according to President Voronin, he met Plahotniuc at a reception in Bucharest, during which President of Romania Iliescu has introduced Plahotniuc to Voronin. That not only puts some very delicate questions with extrapolations into European dimension, but makes the puzzle (Voronin-President of Romania-Plahotniuc-FSB-mafia) quite ugly, in case all allegations come true. Moreover, Plahotniuc has got an advisor, a Romanian Cosmin Gusha, former advisor to President Basescu, then to Mircea Geoana, and this “private advisor” of a businessman has poured oil into the fire with highly political implications, declaring that Prime Minister Vlad Filat is a cigarette smuggler and has an ongoing criminal case in the Bucharest court, and it is highly questionable how such a person can pretend to become a President of a nation, and that if Filat doesn’t have troubles today it doesn’t mean he won’t have troubles tomorrow.

Two days after that the former Minister of Security of Moldova Anatol Plugaru also held a press conference, during which he summarized that we will have either a mafia president or a smuggler president. Given the facts described above, we may say that it seems to be a choice between FSB/Romania influence or ... Romania/? influence. Both options are again in favor of the Moldovan communists, who probably are the main behind the scene organizers of this circus and provocations. The more chaos in the Alliance - the more proof communists have that during their times it was more order, and that with the democrats Moldovans have no good choice at all, or choice between two evils.

The ruling alliance is in a stupor, and the whole country has fallen prey to a much bigger geopolitical game with a strong criminal stink. Maybe the acting President and the Prime Minister would like to dig for the truth, and the acting President did convoke the National Security Council. But the irony is that most of the members of the NSC are the persons from the “mafia list”, so it is very doubtful that the General Prosecutor or the State Security Service will investigate the loud allegations against themselves. Italian “cosa nostra” seems like a little baby compared to the Moldovan crime octopus!

What is happening is extremely disgusting, as it creates desperation and disbelief that such a vicious circle can be broken. In the circumstances described above the hopes that the next elections would change smth radically for better are minuscule. It is not excluded that the elections will result yet again in another impotent coalition, each component of which will cover its own “mafia” interests.

At the same time, such an eruption was necessary - there are serious systemic troubles in this small and poor European country, and at least this wake up call draw attention of Moldovan people and of the rest of the world, that the country needs an intense and deep cleansing, from severe vices, and an establishment of a new more honest and decent political elite, otherwise all noble attempts to become a truly democratic part of the EU are doomed.

We may predict that there is a small chance of changing things for better. If the elections would turn into a person versus person (i.e. Lupu vs Filat) competition, then with all the compromising stuff poured onto the scene, it may become an ugly disaster for Moldova and its European aspirations - communists will win again big time. But if it will be a team versus team fight, clear strong concepts versus concepts, then we hope that Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova would win, as it has a better and more decent and balanced team with a strong potential for change. Its victory may create a possibility of an emergence of a new creative (maybe non-political) prime-minister and new other top state leaders without incapacitating skeletons in the closet. In spite of all pertaining questions, the majority victory of LDPM seems to be now Moldova’s last hope.

P.S. While writing the above, news came from Moldova that the first referendum regarding the direct election of the President has failed due to the low show of the voters. It means that the country needs an emergency and clever crisis management, while the Alliance must seriously review its strategy and try overcome internal differences. Because the only big winner from this failure are the communists, for whom the principle “the worse in the country - the better for communists” worked out well yet again. Besides, the failure of the referendum indirectly shows the true popularity of the ruling alliance and basically may be viewed as a vote of non-confidence.