ACUM – Political Trap for Russia in Moldova

The political ‘coming-out’ of the ACUM leaders Maia Sandu and Andrei Nastase reduces to zero the chances of creating an anti-oligarchic coalition of the parliamentary majority together with the Dodon’s Party of Socialists. In recent weeks, a PR campaign has been launched in the country for the election of deputies to the European Parliament. Citizens of Moldova with Romanian passports – and they are at least half a million according to the most conservative estimates – are called to the polling stations. The leaders of the ACUM bloc openly supported the National Liberal Party of Romania, which wants to get into the European Parliament. A campaign poster with photos of Sandu and Nastase is posted on the official website of the regional branch of the Romanian party. Agitation for NLP, to put it mildly, is a controversial step for the ACUM bloc. The party, which was once headed by the current President of Romania Klaus Iohannis, has repeatedly offered openly unionist programs with regard to Moldova. Although they tried to hide them under the mild wording about the “return of Moldova to the European family”, in fact, the NLP projects were about the absorption of Moldova. For example, in 2016, the party under the pretext of “accelerating Moldova’s European integration” proposed to bring together the legal, political, economic and cultural spaces of Moldova and Romania. The NLP project proposed to unite the power structures of the two countries, promote Romanian-language media, simplify the procedure for obtaining Romanian citizenship and support the Metropolis of Bessarabia of the Romanian Orthodox Church. At the time, the plan caused uproar in Moldova, as it meant that part of the government agencies of the country will simply ‘go to’ Romania. Despite this, at the end of last year, the national liberals presented a new “strategy for the Republic of Moldova”. Co-author of the document, the Vice-Chairman of the party Dinu Gindu explicitly stated that its aim is the absorption of Moldova: “This is the beginning of the countdown to the return of Bessarabia to Romania. In accordance with our strategy, reunification with Romania will be possible in a maximum of 10 years”. Key points of the program for two years have not changed: mass and rapid distribution of Romanian passports, targeted projects (for example, university grants and scholarships), merging of state structures, which together should work on the process of unification. At the same time the party official linked the falling popularity of the ‘unirea’ idea in Moldova with the “manipulation of Moscow”, which “zombifies” the Moldovan population. Ordinary national liberals express their vision of the Romanian-Moldovan relations quite simply. For instance, current eurodeputy running for a new term from the NLP, Siegfried Mureşan, calls himself “an outspoken advocate for unirea”. And another candidate from the party Rares Bogdan at all defined Moldova as the territory of “Greater Romania”: “It is unacceptable to consider this part of Greater Romania, which today is called the Republic of Moldova, a territory simply thrown into someone’s hands. This is the territory that belonged to Romania, where millions of Romanians live. And Romania is responsible as its big brother, sometimes even against the wishes of those who at some levels do not understand certain things”. Bogdan said these words in the presence of Maia Sandu and Andrei Nastase, who did not react and were eloquently silent. ACUM leaders have never hidden their sympathy for unionism, but in the past they tried not to speak so openly about the unification of the two countries, using the generalized wording “return home”. However, cooperation with the NLP, which advocates the elimination of Moldovan statehood, seems to bring an end to the attempts to ‘keep a foot in both camps’. Now ACUM joins the disordered cohort of the unionist forces of Moldova – and this is clearly an unpleasant surprise for Russia. It is no secret that both Brussels and Moscow considered forming a majority of the PSRM and the ACUM bloc as an acceptable option in the current situation of the protracted political crisis. This model can be viable and even effective provided that the main goal of these political units is the same, namely, the liberation of the country from the regime of Vlad Plahotniuc. For a long time we have seen a viscous process of heavy coalition bargaining between socialists and pro-Europeans. While the PSRM tried to behave relatively pragmatically, ACUM members were more emotional in their behavior, regularly ‘shooting’ in the media landscape with annoying and often unacceptable proposals to the socialists. With the support of the National Liberal Party of Romania, ACUM, in fact, ‘slams the door’ and runs in early elections. Bloc leaders cannot but understand that from this point socialists and Dodon portraying themselves dedicated ‘pro-Moldovan’ statists will not go for cooperation with them. Not to mention that Moscow cannot allow the ‘runaway’ of neutral Moldova (where there is a pro-Russian enclave of Transdniestria and the Russian military base) in Romania – a NATO member country. ACUM’s violent maneuver complicates the plans of not only Russia, but also the EU itself, which also hoped for a place in power for its protégé by creating a majority with the socialists. Brussels clearly did not raise the pro-European opposition to promote politically the Moldova-Romania unification process that is problematic and of little use for the EU. There is no doubt that a toxic alliance with Romanian national liberals will cost ACUM dearly. It has already been attacked by some Moldovan media, and after the beginning of the early elections campaign all opponents of pro-Europeans will certainly push this button. In these circumstances, the socialists received additional political arguments to ‘wash their hands’ and fully focus on the preparation for early parliamentary elections.