Gagauzia in Crisis and the Central Power’s Expansion

Anton ŠVEC

The legitimacy and governance crisis in Gagauzia, being provoked by the central authorities, threatens to strip the region of its constitutionally and legally guaranteed autonomous powers, including the right to independently elect its governing bodies  

The central authorities failed to reach an agreement with the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia on the organization of elections in the autonomous region. The draft resolution establishing the relevant procedure, and strongly criticized by the majority of politicians in Comrat, was never adopted. Members of the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia refused to participate in its sittings following the decision of the Chisinau Court of Appeal to uphold the sentence against Bashkan Evghenia Gutul. On 9 June, the Executive Committee definitively rejected the draft resolution on the organization of elections, deeming it incompatible with the legislation of both Moldova and Gagauzia. There are problems with the legitimacy of the executive authorities in the autonomous region, but overall, the situation remains conditionally functional. The acting head of the region is the first deputy chairman of the Executive Committee, Ilia Uzun. Theoretically, elections for the Bashkan could be postponed until the end of next spring (the term of office is four years, and Gutul won the second-round vote in April-May 2023, narrowly defeating the Socialist candidate Grigorii Uzun). However, in Comrat there are already open calls to set a clear date for the appointment of elections, given that the elected Bashkan is in prison and there is no clarity as to when the sentence will be challenged in the Supreme Court. This factor also became one of the indirect reasons for the failure of the draft resolution, which had been under preparation for the past several weeks. In turn, the situation with the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia, elected for a five-year term, is a source of considerable concern. The mandate of the 7th convocation expires in the autumn. Meanwhile, the Speaker of the Assembly, Dmitrii Constantinov, is currently outside the autonomous region following a court sentence issued in Comrat sentencing him to 12 years in prison for alleged embezzlement and abuse of office. In May, his wanted status was suspended due to procedural errors in the investigation, but a return of the politician to his official duties is hardly to be expected. Elections to the 8th convocation of the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia were initially scheduled for March and later postponed to June of this year, but the holding of the vote was blocked by the Central Election Commission and the Supreme Court of Justice. No final judicial ruling has yet been issued. The CEC maintains that there is still time for the central authorities and representatives of the autonomous region to agree on all procedural matters. However, these statements increasingly resemble a media and propaganda maneuver amid the political obstruction of the electoral process in Gagauzia. The current composition of the People’s Assembly and the Executive Committee interpret the actions of the Commission, controlled by the presidency and the PAS party, as an attempt to deprive the autonomous region of its authority to independently organize elections. On the one hand, this would allow pro-government candidates to be promoted (something achievable only through bans, manipulation, and dishonest vote counting), and on the other, it would influence public sentiment in the region. In reality, Chisinau is least interested in finding a mutually acceptable solution. As a result, it is raising the bar of demands in negotiations with the People’s Assembly as much as possible – the publicly available text of the draft resolution looked like Comrat’s capitulation following an ultimatum from PAS, which could only be adopted after amendments and in order to avoid even more severe consequences. After all, if elections are not held in the autumn, objective doubts will arise regarding the legitimacy of the representative body of Gagauzia and the right of elected officials to participate in public and political life. Under such conditions, the central authorities would find it significantly easier to exert pressure on the autonomous region with the aim of dismantling its special, constitutionally guaranteed status. Explanations and expert opinions from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, as well as from the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, have repeatedly affirmed the right of Gagauz institutions to independently organize and conduct elections. However, at the current stage, no international organization, including the European Union, is in a hurry to intervene in the confrontation between Chisinau and Comrat. Although in the past, the OSCE itself provided a platform for consultations between the central and regional authorities. Carte blanche and expanded powers on the part of the regime, in the context of external instability and the European integration course, further reduces Chisinau’s willingness to negotiate. The authorities, accustomed to acting primarily in line with the views of external patrons, continue to exert pressure on the regional leadership in the absence of any external reprimand or constraint. The key question now is how the situation will evolve if Gagauzia does not receive support from international structures. Each day of delay in setting a date and format for the elections works in favor of the central authorities, as in three months the mandate of the People’s Assembly will expire, which would trigger a power vacuum. Under these conditions, Chisinau may attempt to remove the Executive Committee of Gagauzia from the process of making administrative decisions – either immediately in the autumn, or later, by next spring, when the term of the elected Bashkan and, consequently, her appointed deputy Ilia Uzun comes to an end. After this, the President’s Office or the Supreme Security Council could decide to introduce a region-wide state of emergency and temporarily appoint its own representatives to the governance structures of the autonomous region – either from Chisinau or from among local politicians aligned with PAS, such as Serghei Cernev, among others. This transitional period would be used for a partial transfer of powers and, at the very least, for amending local electoral legislation. In other words, the provisions set out in the draft resolution would be implemented by the authorities and the CEC “by hook or by crook”. In parallel, steps would be taken toward reshaping local identity through the imposition of language policies, television channels, media outlets, and the renaming of streets. Such “trial balloons” are regularly floated in public discourse. Gagauzia, for its part, is left to hope for intervention from foreign partners, but this would require changes in the international environment, something unlikely to happen quickly enough for Comrat to preserve the political gains accumulated over previous decades.