Expert: Regime Is Falling Apart and Looking for Salvation in the West

Sergiu CEBAN

The PAS top leaders, following their instinct for political survival, are frantically running around European and American chancelleries to keep themselves afloat

Moldova is fast approaching a wide-ranging crisis and is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe. When analyzing the decisions of the country’s leadership, perhaps for the first time in the last few years, the expert community caught itself thinking how inadequate they are. It looks more and more like the PAS top brass has exhausted its managerial potential. While hospitals in Chisinau are preparing for power cuts, which became known at an operational meeting of the capital’s mayor’s office, our president is campaigning in favor of pro-Western regimes in other countries. Other representatives of the ruling elite, instead of starting to negotiate at least through mediators, have gone abroad for their own foreign policy positioning for purely electoral purposes. Judging by the fact that Tiraspol already seriously fears the worst and has announced a set of measures that send a chill down the spine, it would be logical to go to Kyiv and look for alternative ways of supplying energy resources. But, apparently, there are no serious contacts with Ukrainian partners. Moreover, Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi has already agreed that Ukraine allegedly has every right to ban the transit of Russian gas through its territory. It is hard to understand how the ruling party plans to win the upcoming parliamentary elections with such decisions. Next year will be an election one just like this. The government is trying to do everything to please the voters’ mood and give them at least some reason to vote for PAS. Prime Minister Dorin Recean has managed to declare that the 2025 budget is aimed at improving peopleэs lives. Expenditures are planned to increase by 4%, with a 10.6% increase in salaries. At the same time, capital investments from the state budget will increase by 18%, while the total capital expenditures in the entire public sector (renovation of buildings, roads, etc.) will increase by 11.6%. Teachers are going to hold protests. This was reported by the confederation of trade unions, dissatisfied with the refusal to increase teachers’ salaries by 35%. Rallies of education workers will be held in front of the parliament from 13 to 19 December. When not political parties, agrarians and non-governmental organizations, but teachers start to take to the streets, it is the most alarming call to the authorities. As if to quell the growing wave of social discontent and to gain the support of development partners, the country’s leadership, as already mentioned, has gone abroad, leaving Recean in charge. In fact, it is possible to continue removing ministers from their seats and appointing them to the current prime minister’s departments, as the bench is empty. In Brussels, Maia Sandu will meet with the new leadership of European institutions, including the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Council Antonio Costa, the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola and the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas. The president also plans to talk to the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. On the one hand, there have been no fundamental changes inside the European Commission, except for personnel changes, i.e. there are no special reasons to worry. However, while the new European Commissioners are getting into the working process and understanding the nuances of the situation of Moldova and PAS, the political regime may lose comprehensively the parliamentary elections. As everyone knows, changes will soon come to another important player in our field, Washington. Deputy Prime Minister Mihai Popsoi and Speaker of Parliament Igor Grosu have already been there. Of course, they did not neglect the diaspora. The elections are coming soon, and our compatriots will again be mobilized to support the ruling party and to lobby for the interests of PAS in the politically renewed United States. This is the key motivation for the trip. Popsoi has already started telling the general public about the strategy to counter the interference of the Kremlin and its agents. To this end, Chisinau is strengthening everything related to defense and internal affairs, as well as intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities. A special appeal is aimed at economic resilience to prevent Russian propaganda from using existing social, energy and political risks as a tool to put pressure on Moldova’s ruling regime. All this bombastic rhetoric is an attempt by PAS to fawn to the new government in Washington and, at the same time, to understand what policy it plans to pursue in our regional space. Given that the current Moldovan government is the “fruit” of the labors of the outgoing American administration, a significant adjustment is quite possible. It is still unclear whether our delegates managed to get an audience with someone from Donald Trump’s entourage. But we know how Trump’s supporters like to apply the financial criterion when building a foreign policy stance towards a particular country. So, it is likely that from 20 January, the White House will be more scrupulous in comparing the real effects on the interests of the USA and the resources spent on the maintenance of the Moldovan regime. In fact, the external partners are confused by the absolute incompetence of our government, which cannot act consistently and predictably. The way Chisinau brought the energy crisis on itself and the events of recent weeks have shown that the PAS is no longer able to provide stability and manage the state, as Sandu, Grosu and Recean boasted so actively. Incompetence, which cannot be covered by personnel changes, is causing more and more problems and it seems that neither Washington nor Brussels can stop this trend. There is practically no sphere left where the government’s policy could get any approval from the citizens. On the contrary, we see the accumulation of problems. In two years, Dorin Recean has almost completely renewed his team of ministers, but he will not dare to take the politically responsible step of announcing his resignation. Such a stagnant stay of Recean in the prime minister’s chair, against all odds, can only be explained by the fact that the release of the next cabinet will be the beginning of the end for the ruling party. Of course, seeing weakness and soft-hearted attempts to negotiate, Moscow will act with even greater zeal to achieve a desired result in next year’s elections. The Kremlin’s confidence will also be boosted by the US and EU’s focus on themselves and their relationship. Realizing that the PAS could seriously be on the verge of collapse, we are seeing government officials, following their instinct for political survival, frantically start running around European and American chancelleries to keep themselves afloat and prevent a rethinking of tactics in our country.