De-oligarchization Backwards. What's Happening to Moldova’s Democratic Party

Sergiu CEBAN Analyzing the ongoing processes in Moldovan democrats’ ranks, one can say they are trying to "reassemble" the party and bring it back under former owners’ control As have repeatedly noted the RTA materials, it is highly possible that closer to the presidential elections the Moldovan political space is to face serious changes, primarily within the current parliament configuration. It is obvious that the existing shaky ruling majority cannot provide the required political stability because it constantly generates tension in the Moldovan political space. Moreover, these tensions’ main reason remains the ongoing "disintegration" process of one of the coalition members, the Democratic Party faction. Before the 2019th parliamentary elections and even afterwards it seemed to everyone that the Democratic Party was at the peak of its power, having become one of the defining political forces and state management became practically impossible without it being involved. As a confirmation may serve the words of the same Maia Sandu, who sees no prospects in creating a new coalition without the democrats. It is no secret that the PSRM and PDM were preparing the ground to form a powerful constitutional majority with unconditional control over the state system, including the implementation of the most ambitious tasks like the Transdniestrian settlement. However, such plans were not destined to become true due to the influential external factor intervention. As a result, a largely unnatural coalition with pro-European forces was imposed on the Socialist Party and its leaders. Several months after, Igor Dodon apparently managed to convince his Moscow partners of further cohabitation risks in a tactical alliance with representatives of pro-Western parties and the situation, in a sense, returned to its original position as a result. Then we saw a minority government, appointed by Democrats and Socialists’ votes and the further PSRM and PDM’s "official marriage" in the spring of 2020. Meanwhile, by that time the nature of relations between democrats and socialists was significantly shifted towards the dominance of the latter. As a result, formal leaders negotiated on behalf of the Democratic faction, who apparently stopped taking into account Vladimir Plahotniuc’s opinion and representatives of other influential groups within the PDM, which ultimately led to a continuous Democratic deputies’ and local cells’ outflow from the party. At the same time, party assets were quite tidily siphoned off into alternative factional niches, demonstrating to the nominal PDM leadership whom the Democratic Party’s levers control actually belonged to. Apparently, the situation reached its peak when recently deputies Andronachi and Nichiforciuс left the party. The sense of being in power has always been not as political as utilitarian for this deputy tandem it was a guarantee of business immunity; but these people were Democratic Party’s key financial donors. In this sense, Andronachi and Nichiforciuc know a lot of behind the scenes juicy details of Moldovan politics, including PDM’s private life. As expected, the speaking wallets’ main target was Pavel Filip, who is now personally blamed for large-scale political formation splitting and for using party finances to satisfy his family’s business interests. Most likely, we can here observe the start of the final act and the corporate raid of control over the Democratic Party. Closer to the presidential election, one should not exclude other interesting details’ emergence that should dissuade Mr. Philip from running for presidency alike nullify the prospects for him being appointed prime minister as provided for in the current coalition agreement. According to some experts, such a deputies’ dispersal from the faction is a completely controlled "collapse", initially aimed at weakening its nominal leaders, reducing their authority both within the faction and in party organizations throughout the country. The main goal is to restore full control over the PDM through the party officials loyal to Vladimir Plahotniuc personally, who are now being at the helm of the “Pro Moldova” group. In this regard, it can be assumed that at present, the alternative PDM leaders are implementing the final stage of their return aimed at preparing conditions to reunify the Democratic deputies and to allow Democratic Party’s political renaissance. This is all necessary, so that within post-election period to enter into negotiations with Igor Dodon and the Party of Socialists on a new ruling majority beginning with strengthened starting positions towards a more "fair" control over the state-political system distribution, from the point of view of democrats, thus, allowing to consolidate the position and ensure long-term stay in power. Given the current situation and ratings, early parliamentary elections are not beneficial to the overwhelming majority of political forces that current parliament composition represents. Therefore, whoever wins the presidential elections in Moldova, the key players are clearly aware that this autumn’s main political battle lies within the walls of parliament and they are timely preparing to reach it fully armed.