Expert Parliamentary Majority’s Counterattack a Way Out of the Moldovan Crisis

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Sergiu CEBAN The latest events around the Constitutional Court indicate that key participants in the current internal political crisis in Moldova are raising the stakes and are ready to take unprecedented measures to win. Undoubtedly, the first batch of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine arriving to Moldova was the week’s main event. The event was given the maximum publicity when the Russian plane delivered it to the Chisinau airport on April 24, in the company of Igor Dodon and several deputies of the State Duma. Not to be ruled out that the events that took place in the Moldovan parliament the day before had a direct aim to discourage Maia Sandu from any desire to come to the airport and have an eye contact with Igor Dodon there. It must be said, the "plan to cut off Sandu" got more than accomplished and the Socialist Party could take all the benefits from the political PR on the Russian vaccine. In general, the main impetus that prompted the PSRM to take more decisive actions was the intention that the Constitutional Court announced on April 22, to consider next Wednesday the legality of the Emergency Situation regime introduction. Realizing that already on April 28, Maia Sandu would have every reason to sign a decree on legislative body dissolution and early elections appointing, the parliamentary majority deputies launched a counterattack and adopted a declaration on usurpation of power by three judges of the Constitutional Court. They made thus an attempt to change the composition of the judicial organ. The opposition, led by Maia Sandu, expectedly defended the Constitutional Court and its chairman, organizing a screening near the courthouse in order to prevent judge Boris Lupascu (that got appointed by the deputies) entering the building. On the side of the president spoke almost all main diplomatic missions, European structures and most importantly, the chairman of the Venice Commission, to whose opinion the Socialist Party has actively appealed over recent weeks. The Collective West’s solidarity reaction is a kind of sign that attempts to reverse the political situation in Moldova outside the rules will be harshly suppressed up to political disqualification. After the incident, Igor Dodon softened his rhetoric but there is no doubt the PSRM will continue fighting for the right to determine the date and parameters of early parliamentary elections. The socialists can take unprecedented measures and prevent Maia Sandu’s decree appearance, up to blocking the entrance to the building of the Constitutional Court. To what extent the leader of the socialists will be ready for radical scenarios will become clear this week, including after a series of planned meetings with key ambassadors in Chisinau. When convening the Supreme Security Council, the president aimed at appealing to law enforcement agencies and the Prosecutor General's Office. Such steps can be viewed as a "warning shot" taken to siege the parliamentary majority from intentions to go beyond the constitutional field in the future. It is possible that by means of such measures, socialists are seeking criminal prosecution on the eve of elections, so that everyone perceives them as “victims of the regime” persecuted for political reasons. Such attempts to play against the rules hoping for external protection are hardly justified in such a situation, since they are so much alike those of 2019 spring-summer period. Thereat, Vladimir Plahotniuc’s inadequate actions made him so much toxic that the American ambassador personally "evacuated" him from the country's political space notwithstanding the large-scale sole control system over the country the oligarch himself created and despite Washington’s long-term close tutelage. In the current conditions, it is useful for socialists getting ready for inevitable early parliamentary elections this year. It is well seen that unless losses for its political rating, the parliamentary majority cannot clearly procrastinate the time waiting for a wonderful opportune moment for the trend to be broken and for the socialists’ ratings going up again. Some experts do reasonably believe that instead of extending postponement, it would be more efficient for the PSRM to arrange parliamentary elections on the heels of presidential elections and take their electoral maximum achieved in December last year when mobilizing the voter in the electoral race.