Elections in Gagauzia: Grigorii Uzun and Evghenia Gutul to Compete for Governor Seat

The runoff election for the new baskan of Gagauzia is to be held. According to yesterday’s polling results, the PSRM candidate Grigorii Uzun and Evghenia Gutul of the Sor party have entered the race. Moreover, the gap between the two is insignificant. Victori Petrov is third by a wide margin, followed by Dmitrii Croitor and Nicolai Dudoglo. A total of 8 candidates participated in the first round. As for the winners, Grigorii Uzun is a better known personality. At the age of 36, he was an MP of the Party of Socialists, but only for five months. Ziarul de Gardă recalls that four years ago a criminal case was opened against Uzun for intentional injury after a fight at the lakeside in Vulcanesti. However, it was quickly closed. The Moldovacurata.md portal profile says that the party that nominated Evghenia Gutul has never published information about her professional activities. The only thing we can learn from the 37-year-old candidate’s resume is that she is a lawyer by profession. According to the law, the governor of Gagauzia is a member of the cabinet of ministers, which means that regardless of the choice the Gagauz people will make in two weeks, the pro-European Dorin Recean’s government will have a pro-Russian member of the cabinet, as both candidates for the Governor position are known to favor Moscow. Time will show what the outcome will be, but it is worth noting that in the past four years alone the EU has invested 12 million euros in the development of Gagauzia. According to the European Union mission, many infrastructure and other projects have been developed in Gagauzia for the last four years with European money. The most important donor among all EU member states is Romania. Right now, Bucharest is financing the construction of a new academic building for the Mihai Eminescu Lyceum in Gagauzia, the only Romanian-language school in Comrat. The Romanian Cabinet has allocated 15 million lei of the 20 million lei needed for the project. Relations between Comrat and Chisinau were complicated under the PAS government. Last September, the head of state, who was on a visit to Gagauzia, was bombarded with questions and remarks, sometimes not entirely positive. During the heated debate, Maia Sandu said that the autonomy will have a lot more advantages if it has a pro-Western orientation.