Opinion: Maia Sandu Could not Avoid Mistakes in Early Days of Her Presidency

Vladimir ROTAR  With little more than a month behind, the presidency has been at the epicenter of several remarkable scandals at once, while Maia Sandu has not succeeded in the main task so far - provoking snap parliamentary elections The Moldovan presidency got a new commander-in-chief little more than a month ago. Under normal conditions, the period is too short to draw even the most intermediate conclusions. However, the new head of state did not have time to contemplate: from the very first days of her term, Maia Sandu found herself in the center of a fierce political struggle as one of its main actors. As a result, the past period of little more than thirty days turned out to be to the utmost eventful giving the Moldovan society a lot to think about. Judging by public statements, Sandu is more or less well aware of the most pressing problems facing the country: poverty, a malfunctioning justice system, and total corruption. However, whether she knows how to solve them is another question. An insight into her electoral program will more likely give a negative answer. Except for attracting massive financial and expert support from abroad, it contained no other reasonable ideas (to be fair, her opponents' programs as well). However, one must know how to ask for help. So far, Maia Sandu is doing it better than her predecessor. In just a month, she successfully traveled to Brussels and Kiev, received President of neighboring Romania Klaus Iohannis in Chisinau, and literally today she began her two-day visit to France, where, among other things, a meeting with Emmanuel Macron is planned. On the other hand, the numerous international meetings resulted mainly in well-wishes and pledges of support, mostly without specific details and deadlines. The European Union, with its implicit backing of the Moldovan president, is nevertheless in no hurry to immediately open up the money bag, assessing the prospects for the political situation development in the country and Chisinau's potential to fulfill its European integration commitments. As for the internal situation in the republic, it is rather bad: Moldova entered 2021 amid a deep-rooted political mess, ongoing pandemic and socio-economic crisis. At the same time, due to her enemies' efforts (and through her own efforts, as well), it was the president who was pushed by the media to the forefront of the fight against all Moldovan problems. This created not only high expectations from her activities, but also additional excitement around everything that was associated with the name of the new head of state. Both the society and the opponents of the Moldovan leader observed all her steps literally through a magnifying glass, and the first scandalous episodes followed soon. Thus, the public resonance was caused by one of the first appointments made by Sandu when the post of General Secretary of the presidential administration was given to 34-year-old Andrei Spinu, who is known for his commercial activities, including two offshore companies, possible fraud with the income declaration, a dubious story with a 400 thousand euros loan and etc. Despite this, Sandu took the side of her "right hand", claiming that all his income was "honestly" obtained. Later, questions arose to other members of the presidential team, for example, about the late submission of income documents. The latest scandal involved the presidential adviser, Ala Nemerenco, who had allegedly received a master's degree unlawfully. All these incidents, one way or another, directly affected Maia Sandu's image, running a bit counter to her election slogan "the time has come for good people." The actions of the presidency following the Constitutional Court's decision to annul the Law on the Functioning of Languages adopted by the parliament in December cannot be called professional. The leader of the republic left rather controversial decision and motivation of the judicial authority without response, thus missing the chance to gain political benefits from such a fertile subject and at the same time to demonstrate in practice her regular calls for interethnic reconciliation and harmony. Moreover, no response from the head of state followed to Ala Nemerenco's several disastrous statements about "alien ethnic groups in Moldova", which many explained as a solidarity of views. A rather crude political move was the openly expressed hostility and pressure of the president (and not only) on the General Prosecutor's Office, which had already forced Alexandru Stoianoglo to apply to international institutions for assistance. And Sandu's political opponents didn't miss the chance to draw parallels between her and Vlad Plahotniuc, who also started his regime by capturing key state institutions, including the Prosecutor General's Office. The Supreme Security Council headed by the head of state also triggered much hype. And it's not because its first meeting was held to become a political and media benefit performance of Maia Sandu, filled to the maximum with various slogans and at a minimum with specific recipes for solving Moldovan problems. The main public bewilderment was caused by the composition of the advisory body, which, at Sandu's suggestion, included not only the heads of relevant departments, but also (for some reason) her advisers, some deputies from the PAS and even NGO representatives who, as SSC members, got access to state secrets. Whether this really correlates with ensuring the country's security is unclear, but such a step looks, at least, strange. And this despite the fact that, for example, the Gagauzian Bashkan was not included in the Council, although the leaders of this autonomy are usually its members. Not the best decision of the president, whose rating among the Gagauz people is already poor. Finally, Maia Sandu's main headache is early parliamentary elections. Perhaps, it was in this field that the president's actions turned out to be the most awkward. Her attempts to bypass the existing constitutional options enabling dissolution of the parliament, which were initially unpromising, expectedly ended in nothing. The creative idea of the parliamentary ​​"self-liquidation" found no understanding in the Constitutional Court, and the initiative to sign a certain declaration of intent by the factions was even assessed by critics as at least naive. While Maia Sandu and her team were trying to implement non-viable scenarios, precious time was lost. In the end, she still had to play by the rules and nominate a candidate for prime minister - admittedly, a very controversial candidate, and this is not about Natalia Gavrilita's personal qualities. All the nuances associated with this nomination were described previously. Most experts already call this decision the president's biggest mistake, which could have far-reaching consequences for her entire future mandate. Indeed, the risk that the current composition of parliament will vote (at the first or second attempt) for Gavrilita's candidacy is very high. And there is no guarantee that the president has a "plan B" for that case. On the whole, the contrast between the president’s success in domestic and foreign policy is definitely striking. While on the international perimeter she is victoriously winning back the frontiers lost under the previous president, inside the country she has to wage a difficult battle, with unclear outcome. There is no need to doubt the head of state's rich experience and political instinct - and yet, can we state that too many mistakes have been made in such a short time?