Natalia Gavrilita’s Interim Government

Sergey CHEBAN

Taking into account many aggravations, the composition of the Gavrilita’s Government may be of an interim nature and a kind of “political suicide squad” (the Cabinet of Arseniy Yatsenyuk used to be it once in neighboring Ukraine).

The last week events indicate that shaping power structure is a scheduled process, although at a higher speed. The legislative body with distinct outline of power and opposition has factions, elected leadership and working bodies. The next step ahead of the political schedule is likely to be the appointment of the Natalia Gavrilita’s cabinet of ministers, who was nominated last Friday by the president as a PM candidate. The first session of parliament, mostly unexpected, was logically used by political advisers to reposition the head of state, who, despite her limited powers, should be perceived by people and the political class as the main “moral and spiritual leader” of the country's new course. Having monopolized the parliamentary rostrum, Maia Sandu, during her long speech, decided to set a new sound like a “political tuning fork”, and indicated the main parameters of the new “system settings”. Having voiced the necessary messages to both internal and external addressees, the president generally outlined the future ideological platform of the Moldovan government. Nevertheless, analysts are impatiently awaiting the presentation of Natalia Gavrilita’s government program, which, presumably, should be more meaningful and fundamental than the previous document (in spring), which did not receive a single vote in parliament. At least in order to correlate with the people’s expectations, as they are in anticipation of the first tangible results almost this month. However, it will be possible to speak seriously about the successes and failures of the new government at least after the traditional first 100 days. At the same time, the PAS will have to focus on a large outreach work with citizens, since large-scale changes and positive effects from reforms can definitely come only in the long term. The main question now hovering in society and the media is what will be the personal composition of the new government? Will we see new faces or even foreign Varangians there (for example, a similar approach was implemented in Ukraine after the Maidan) who will take on the brunt of public discontent for possible blunders and unpopular steps of the new authorities. Despite the experts' guesses about the existing internal frictions between various groups of the ruling party regarding the future configuration of the Cabinet, we must pay tribute to the fact that the PAS currently keeps the situation under control and no dirty “party linen” is washed in public. The only indicator that allows us to make at least some assumptions about a possible model and structure of governance so far is that the majority of party leaders decided not to leave for executive positions, but remained in parliament leadership, including sectoral commissions. Thus, it is logical to assume that the government can get a truly technocratic appearance, but at the same time, each ministry will be under the close tutelage and remote supervision of the top ten PAS faction deputies. Some facts signal that a certain rearrangement of the executive branch structure is also expected, including unbundling of several ministries and services, which experts have already associated with the need to meet the interests of various internal and external groups associated with PAS. One way or another, we should expect an administrative reform and a gradual withdrawal from the executive architecture introduced by the Democratic Party to simplify the mechanism of oligarchic control over the country. Therefore, plans to build a completely different administrative configuration are more than justified and will obviously be implemented in one form or another. Despite the euphoria associated with support from development partners, the new Cabinet of Ministers faces a lot of issues and challenges, some of which are obviously inherited, but their solutions will have to be worked out as soon as possible. One of the important tasks is the speedy conclusion of agreements with international institutions and saturation of the economy with financial resources. Meanwhile, if the dialogue on loans with the European Union is more limited by administrative and political terms, then the results of the negotiations with the IMF may bring the new Moldovan authorities in a vulnerable position, since some of the requirements, including raising the retirement age, will barely be perceived positively in society. On the eve of the next heating season, the conclusion of an energy supply agreement with the Russian gas monopoly is equally important. Judging by the statements of the head of Moldovagaz, it is highly likely that, given the rise in gas prices in Europe and globally, the cost of natural gas may also change for Moldovan consumers. We know quite well that energy resources have long became an instrument for Moscow, so a conversation with the Russian side will be a difficult task for the new government, both in terms of social & economic planning and political conjuncture. According to the majority of experts, given the pace set by the ruling party, the new Moldovan government will take up its duties next Monday. Of course, the final staffing of the ministries and state bodies is to be completed, the purge of political appointees is to be carried out, so the staff turmoil may take a lot of time. Taking into account the comprehensive nature of aggravations, the Government composition may have an interim nature and become a kind of “political suicide squad” (the Cabinet of Arseniy Yatsenyuk used to be it once in neighboring Ukraine) to carry out the most unpopular reforms and transformations. Therefore, the parliamentary “supervisors” can nevertheless take ministerial chairs subsequently, after a period of “shock therapy”.