Major Milestones of Maia Sandu’s Presidency in 2020-2024

Semyon ALBU

On the eve of the second round of elections, let’s sum up the results of Maia Sandu’s term

So, Maia Sandu’s first mandate is coming to an end, and the decisive vote is coming up. It is high time to look back and reflect on what has made her presidency memorable, where it worked and where it did not. I personally have never cherished much hopes about this politician. Four years ago, she was frankly lucky to spar with Igor Dodon, whose loose talk and political impurity, which led to the “bag case”, destroyed his reputation in many ways. He was also unlucky with the pandemic and the severe drought during the election year. Therefore, both rounds were an easy win for Sandu who offered voters a simple programme with catchy slogans and promises. But is she better than her predecessor? We should define the evaluation criteria. Of course, the powers of the head of state are largely nominal, but specifically Sandu, who after the summer of 2021 had a parliamentary majority of her party and the government formed by her, had enough levers to influence the formation of domestic and foreign policy. And certainly, more than Dodon had. Another factor is her promises outlined in the Time of decent people programme. And since no one forced her to come up with these pledges, her outcome can be strictly evaluated. Firstly, let’s go through the five “national benchmarks” outlined.

1. “Restoration of justice”. This was presented as the centerpiece of the whole programme, its alpha and omega. And indeed, as soon as the power was in the hands of “good people”, they immediately started the long-suffering reform of justice. It was carried out in such a way that now even Sandu herself has to admit its failure. Of course, blaming the past cohort of “thieves and corruptors”, and only slightly blaming her own government. In my opinion, the quality and essence of this reform is well illustrated by the number of materials devoted to its problems on this website only, which could make up a whole dissertation.

In fact, the “reform” turned into a blatant usurpation of the main judicial institutions - the Superior Council of Magistracy, the Superior Council of Prosecutors, the Constitutional Court, etc. - by the ruling authorities through various murky and scandalous schemes, such as vetting or rigged competitions. As a result, the system lost a lot of staff, was partially paralyzed and became even less fair and efficient than before. Now we are promised that the next attempt to establish justice will definitely be successful but I don’t believe it at all, as the executors will remain the same.

1. “Jobs and undivided families”. Objective indicators can best describe the situation: for example, the number of jobs lost due to the outflow of foreign capital and, as a result, the closure of enterprises. Production was never increased, the figures are falling, new investors hardly appear, but the old ones are leaving. This is also one of the reasons for the record-breaking migration abroad in Moldova’s history: over the last three years, according to the data from the relevant body, almost 300,000 people left the country and did not return.
2. “Minimum pension of 2000 lei”. Formally, this is one of the few promises that can be considered fulfilled. But, firstly, even this increase did not affect everyone. Secondly, the political decisions of the new government led to a significant, sometimes multiple, increase in tariffs for public utilities, accelerated inflation (in 2022 it became the highest in Europe), which devalued and made symbolic additions to the payments to pensioners. Moreover, the regime of Maia Sandu directly violated the Constitution by not indexing pensions to the inflation rate, explaining that there was no money in the budget. Yet, the money was found to increase the salaries of ministers. As well as one-off payments to tens of thousands of pensioners ten days before the elections – a vulgar, primitive PR move, which testifies to the true, utilitarian attitude towards this part of society.
3. “Two billion a year for the village development projects”. The yellows are very fond of boasting about their European Village Programme and its sequels, through which billions of lei were allocated for infrastructure projects in rural areas. But can it be that simple and benign? It can’t. This programme is often and reasonably criticized for its corruption component, because many repairs and construction of facilities in reality do not correspond to the sums that were spent on it. Secondly, European Village was used by the regime to increase control over the primars – many of them defected to PAS as a result, and those who did not want to, often faced refusal to finance the projects submitted by them. Thirdly, the future of the programme is vague – there is not enough money for it, and last year almost two billion did not reach the town halls.
4. “Taking Moldova out of isolation and bringing it closer to the European Union”. Foreign policy is Maia Sandu’s specialty and the source of her main victories in office. But the results are very contradictory. On the one hand, we are closer to the EU, it is hard to argue. But how much did Sandu directly contribute to this? Let me remind you that before the war in Ukraine, Moldova’s European integration was stalled and showed no achievements, except for the very fact of some revitalisation of contacts with the West. We even had to join the Association Trio in order to breathe some life into the process and the same Eastern Partnership programme (does anyone remember it?). And we managed to obtain a candidate status, and subsequently to open negotiations with Brussels, only at the expense of Ukraine after the start of the Russian invasion. But even Georgia with its “pro-Russian government”, which refused to be included in the Western sanctions policy against Russia, was granted the same candidacy. In other words, our rapprochement with the EU was pure geopolitics, and Maia Sandu was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Moreover, I dare say that the incumbent president is now the biggest obstacle on the way to Europe. It should be understood that the EU has already given us all the advances and now expects real work on reforming and strengthening the country’s potential, so that it does not enter the Union as a half-dead zombie. And the results of the Sandu regime’s rule cannot be called anything but deplorable: the country is objectively in a very bad socio-economic situation, showing growth at the level of statistical error and minimal prospects, demanding more and more donor aid and loans for its maintenance. This is why the popularity of European integration among the people has plummeted in a few years, this is why the referendum on EU membership failed and had to be boosted by fraudulent diaspora voting. Maia Sandu did her best to discredit the European future, daring to manipulate and jeopardize it for the sake of her petty situational electoral interests. Over this time, her regime has spent billions of euros of external funding without any benefits for the population and the state. At the same time, all these “successes” in communicating with the West are largely offset by our destructive self-isolation from the East, primarily Russia, which has brought the population both everyday inconveniences (for example, the closure of air travel) and large financial losses (the political refusal of direct supplies of Russian gas). In addition to this “top 5”, there were many other promises in Sandu’s programme that she did not even come close to fulfilling, which makes it possible to speak of a blatant lie to the voters. She did not try to become a president for everyone by splitting the society (which is clearly seen in the results of the referendum and numerous scandals between the two rounds of elections), did nothing to bring the two banks of the Dniester closer together, destroyed relations with Russia, actually condemned farmers to ruin, etc. In general, the Sandu regime has shown incompetence in state management, impotence in effectively overcoming crises, narrow-mindedness in foreign policy, passion for suppressing opposition and dissent, and love for the enrichment schemes of its predecessors. Corruption continues to plague our country to no lesser, or even greater extent, turning the president’s closest associate Andrei Spinu as its avatar. The economy is stagnating, living standards are falling. There is no transparency in decisions, and authoritarian tendencies are damaging Moldovan democracy. The extent to which Maia Sandu is personally to blame for all this is debatable. But as an ideological inspirer, personification and the main person in the hierarchy of the ruling regime, she is in any case responsible for all the lawlessness that took place in Moldova for the last four years. Therefore, dear readers, decide for yourself whether you want this “show” to go on or whether you want some changes that give hope for the best.