Experts: The Ruling Party Is at a Complete Loss

Sergiu Ceban

The parliamentary majority is so actively accumulating mistakes that Maia Sandu and the Action and Solidarity Party seem to not actually have enough resources, experience, knowledge or a clear plan to dramatically change the situation in the country.

One of the main topics of the past week, of course, was Maia Sandu’s speech at the regular meeting of the UN General Assembly. Journalists and experts have already scrutinized our president’s high rostrum speech by now generally agreeing that a confident and pacifying presentation should inspire hope in the Moldovan inhabitants. Meanwhile, in real life, the country is entering another tough transition period, and the problems are piling up so rapidly that there is a feeling of complete frustration of the new government. First of all, one can’t help but notice that the number of coronavirus infection cases has been actively growing for several weeks now. Because of this, the Council of the European Union has already excluded Moldova from the “green list”. At the same time, Chile, Kuwait and Rwanda were added to the list. Such a decision was not only a severe affront to the Moldovan leadership, but also a reason to admit that the Cabinet of Ministers failed to cope with the priority task of maintaining the epidemiological situation at the level of minimum morbidity rates. A very peculiar practice of appointments to high leadership positions also continues. The authorities' desire to keep these activities beyond the reach of public control with the help of not very transparent candidate selection mechanisms is becoming more and more noticeable. They even do without consulting with the civil society representatives. The case of electing Natalia Molosag to the post of parliamentary Ombudsman, who quite a while was Maia Sandu’s personal lawyer, leads us to disappointing conclusions. It appears that once again the appointment processes in most cases are based on political criteria and personal loyalty of certain applicants for high government positions. In this regard, experts believe that the first warning sign was the decision of the Constitutional Court to suspend the presidential decree on Dmitry Pulbere’s dismissal from the member of the Supreme Council of Prosecutors post. This suggests that the actions of the authorities already transcend the elementary regulations and bear all the signs of a gross violation of the current legislation. Besides, it is clear that Maia Sandu’s entourage is presented by people with unreasonably strong political ambitions but poor professional training, which prompts the president to make mistakes that affect the personal reputation of the country’s leader. The situation with the new gas contract is the most striking example of inconsistency and disorientation of the leadership and the government. We must pay tribute to the opposition, who, despite all the internal uncertainty and disunity, perhaps for the first time managed to perplex the authorities and force them to get moving and call Moscow. Although a few weeks earlier, Maia Sandu said that she did not see the need to involve the government in negotiations on the natural gas supply. Such steep turns cannot but cause alarm, since the Cabinet of Ministers, judging by the amount of failures, has no clear plan or vision of its position even on such a significant issue as the energy security of the state. However, there might be at least one in the issue of reintegration, since Deputy Prime Minister Vlad Kulminski during the planned “5+2” meeting expressed his intention to convince all participants of the need to start negotiations on a political settlement of the Transdniestrian conflict. It is noteworthy that this was voiced on the eve of the visit to Moldova of German President Frank Steinmeier, who is well acquainted with the Transdniestrian problem. Meanwhile, Mr. Steinmeier is also known to be the author of the well-know “formula” in his own name for the implementation of the Minsk agreements and, if desired, he can write something for Chisinau as well. Despite the fact that there is a difficult regrouping in the opposition and it can pay attention to the authorities’ performance only occasionally, the parliamentary majority is so actively accumulating mistakes that Communists and Socialists are likely to have no shortage of reasons for active criticism in the coming months. This will help them to even out their electoral rates that can be tested during the November elections of the Balti mayor. Almost two months of manual rule of the country has exposed the harsh reality: Maia Sandu and the Action and Solidarity Party actually do not have enough resources, experience, knowledge and a clear plan to dramatically change the situation in the country. Such circumstances, alas, once again provoke comparisons with Volodymyr Zelensky and his Servant of the People party, which, apart from ambitious plans to radically change the lives of Ukrainians, had no strategic vision or tactics to achieve their goals. As a result, by the fall of 2021, the Ukrainian president decided to declare war on almost all influential financial and economic groups with the sole purpose of holding on to his seat. Perhaps we are still far from such sad scenarios, but if the current government continues working in the same pace, it risks falling under the weight of unresolved problems and massive criticism within six months, like the first Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers led by Oleksiy Honcharuk. Of course, much can be blamed on Natalia Gavrilita and her current colleagues, especially all the failures and unrealized hopes of the population for a rapid improvement in the quality of life. However, given a severe staff shortage, the next composition of the Moldovan government may turn out to be even weaker. If in the near future the authorities are still assertive and offhand in their actions, it will be safe to say that the current seemingly respectable political regime in no way compares favorably with the period of Vlad Plahotniuc's rule in terms of transparency, democratic principles and creeping capture of the state. One gets the feeling that from the very start Maia Sandu and her party, having not yet done anything for the country, began to prepare the ground to fasten themselves as tightly as possible to the office chairs and take a firm grip on power for as long as possible.