Opinion: “PAS Builds a State of Systemic Injustice”

The merging of the ruling party with state institutions has given rise to a corrupt system in which society is effectively powerless, and everything is based on connections and the exploitation of the country’s remaining resources for the benefit of those in power

Semyon ALBU, RTA: Five years of PAS’ absolute rule have led the country to an inevitable outcome. Of course, there is no “European Moldova”. On the contrary, all the worst practices of past regimes have been copied and reproduced in an even more grotesque form: the de facto disenfranchisement of the population, the unchecked triumph of “cronyism”, and the government’s political control over key institutions – the courts, the Central Election Commission, and the media. The possibility of expressing a view alternative to the official one still remains, but it is shrinking day by day. And there is almost no point in it: the “yellows” rule the country with the full support of the West, and therefore, without the slightest qualms, completely ignore the demands of society. One of the most alarming consequences of this state of affairs is that, within this monstrous system built by the PAS, any sense of justice, which every citizen should feel, if only for their own peace of mind, has been completely lost. Instead, scenes from the country’s daily life reveal, almost on a daily basis, total arbitrariness and lawlessness at every level. Take, for example, yesterday’s disheartening news that the individual responsible for the horrific traffic accident in Straseni has been secretly placed under house arrest and is walking around freely. Let me recap the details: in early February, a 19-year-old Mercedes driver struck two children on a crosswalk – a 14-year-old boy, who died at the scene, and a 12-year-old girl, who suffered severe injuries. Video footage of the incident shows that this was no tragic accident: the reckless driver ignored all traffic rules while passing the crosswalk and did not slow down even though another car had already stopped in front of the crosswalk. There is much to be said about what happens on our roads and how the “gilded youth” and others drive, but that is a topic for another article. What interests us, however, is how events unfolded after the accident. It turned out that the Mercedes driver, despite his young age, was already a member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which apparently gave him an added sense of impunity. The public, outraged by the child’s death, demanded the harshest punishment for the culprit. But his discovered ties to the police force immediately raised unsavory suspicions. And, as we can see, those suspicions were confirmed. You may be guilty three times over, but if you have the right connections, you can always “work things out”. The heartbroken mother, who lost her son, said that, naturally, no one had notified her about the change in the preventive measure for her child’s actual killer; she found out about it from concerned citizens. Admitting that she “no longer has the strength” to seek justice, she nevertheless decided to keep fighting. But even from the tone of her voice, one can tell how much she believes in the integrity of our justice system. Or take “recent” egregious case: an investigation is underway against a group of residents of Vadul-lui-Voda who committed a robbery against a man. It would seem, everything is fine. The catch is that, according to the lawyer, the defendants did not simply attack a random man, but a drug dealer well-known in the town who openly sells illegal substances. According to her, they had repeatedly reported this to both the mayor’s office and the police, but officials there simply shrugged it off. As a result, desperate parents, seeking to protect their children from this criminal, resorted to extreme measures and took the law into their own hands, destroying the bags of drugs they found in the process. The law enforcement authorities, of course, have a different version of events: allegedly, the defendants themselves had previously been involved in drug trafficking, and this is essentially a personal conflict. In theory, the investigation should sort out the intricacies of this story, but will it be unbiased? Especially in light of recent scandals, when widespread cases of police covering up drug trafficking and individual officers’ personal drug use came to light. By the way, in the case described, the drug dealer himself, of course, has the status of a victim. It seems he was taken into custody after all, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already being transferred to “house arrest”. In any case, the fact that a certain individual openly deals drugs without attracting any attention from the authorities looks, once again, extremely suspicious. There are, in fact, numerous such “asterisk cases” in which law, justice, ethics, democracy, and other high-minded concepts quickly turn into empty rhetoric. Society is being supplied with them in bulk. One example is the electoral race for the mayoralty of Orhei, where the fully government-controlled Central Electoral Commission removed the candidate from the “Democracy at Home” party, Victor Pertu, with the stroke of a pen. The pretext was an allegation of his ties to the unconstitutional “SOR” party, which was filed… by Pertu’s rival from PAS. As you can see, no one even bothers to try to disguise such lawless maneuvers for the sake of appearances anymore. I suspect that a scheme is being tested to remove from the election any politicians who are unwelcome to the ruling regime. Meanwhile, the “Democracy at Home” party, led by Vasile Costiuc, is filing appeals with the “captured” courts, with a predictable outcome. Consider the situation with the “Moldova Railway”, where authorities recently reported that wage arrears had been cleared. However, the truth soon came to light about how exactly this “success” was achieved: mass layoffs of workers of retirement age, cutting other staff to the bare minimum, closing half of the operating stations, forcing workers onto unpaid leave with only partial pay, and other measures that amount to gross violations of labor law. This dismal list could go on indefinitely. The bottom line is that if the ruling party has managed to build anything in Moldova, it is a state of total injustice. A state where those in power care only about carving up Moldova’s meager resources and foreign aid and loans. Hence all these decisions to maintain high fuel excise taxes during a severe crisis, to deregulate prices on socially essential goods, and so on. Hence our country’s slide into the category of “hybrid regimes”, just as under Plahotniuc. People, seeing this whole circus, are voting with their feet and leaving Moldova en masse. But PAS doesn’t care – it’s already bringing in hundreds of low-skilled migrants from Asian countries, who are now causing a stir on social media.