Expert: Early Autumn Exposes the Limits of PAS Rule

Sergiu CEBAN, RTA: The key pillars underpinning the stability of the ruling regime have begun to collapse, quite literally all at once. For years, failures of governance were offset by European rhetoric, rising tariffs by promises of a brighter future, and personnel scandals by “honest” internal investigations. Meanwhile, society was urged to remain patient “in the name of strategic goals”. But the factors that once helped contain public discontent are no longer producing the desired effect, while mounting problems are reinforcing one another, leaving PAS with increasingly little room for maneuver. The resignation of Alexandru Munteanu just eight months after his appointment was supposed to give the ruling party and Maia Sandu an opportunity to distance themselves from the pile-up of personnel and corruption scandals and restart the cycle of governance. However, the cabinet of Vasile Tofan has, in terms of its very composition, effectively reproduced the previous model, despite its high-sounding program, “A European Economy, an Effective State”. During its first month and a half in office, the new government was forced to urgently revise the budget, explain the sharp increase in gas tariffs, reshuffle ministers, and deal with the consequences of the tragic failure of the probation system following the murder in Magdacesti. At first glance, Tofan was brought in as a symbol of economic competence and improved state governability. In practice, however, he is rapidly turning into a political shock absorber, a figure expected to absorb the political costs of decisions that are still being made not in the government building, but in the political centers concentrated around the presidential circle and the PAS leadership. When the prime minister is forced to personally defuse a scandal over the increase in VAT on women’s hygiene products and justify tariff hikes, it points to one thing: the authorities are no longer controlling or shaping the agenda, which is instead taking shape entirely spontaneously as a result of successive crises. Under these conditions, the cabinet is forced to operate in a state of constant firefighting. Of course, the ruling regime is not currently on the verge of complete collapse, but it is already operating firmly in a purely “defensive posture”. For a long time, the European perspective served a stabilizing function for PAS, allowing virtually any domestic failure to be explained as the “inevitable price” of the transition toward EU membership. No one forced Tofan to make such promises, yet for some reason he chose to pledge that all negotiating clusters would be opened in 2026 and that Moldova would sign its EU accession treaty by the end of 2028. Reality, however, as practice has shown, is proving far more modest. By the beginning of September, only two of the six clusters had formally been opened, while further procedural progress is clearly beyond the prime minister’s control. At the September 1 meeting of the EU Council working group, Hungary once again refused to approve the results of Ukraine’s screening process, leaving our own European integration once again hostage to someone else’s bilateral disputes. In addition, as of September 1, household consumers will be paying 20.30 lei per cubic meter of gas including VAT, up from 14.42 lei. The authorities can talk endlessly about energy independence, diversification, and freeing the country from Gazprom’s “shackles”, but ordinary citizens judge the reform by the indicator that matters most to them: the final price. This raises an uncomfortable question that neither the government nor the regulator has yet answered: even if the new model is safer than the previous one, why has most of its cost been shifted onto the population? The irony is that the “energy independence line” from Vulcanesti to Chisinau, which the authorities had promised to put into operation by Independence Day on August 27, once again failed to come online. This time, the culprit was a transformer that had been sent to Spain for repairs. Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Dorin Recean, whom bloggers and some media outlets have linked to the promotion of the new Polaris airline, is wasting no time in squeezing out direct competitors. As a result, Fly One has initiated international arbitration proceedings against the Moldovan state. An equally important symptom of the looming systemic crisis is the planned revision of this year’s budget. Following the adjustment, revenues will amount to 80.27 billion lei, while expenditures will reach 103.35 billion, resulting in a deficit of 23.07 billion lei, or 5.95% of GDP. This is a clear sign of deeply unhealthy processes within our fiscal and budgetary system. The authorities promise to bring the deficit back down to 3% of GDP as early as next year, but at whose expense will spending be cut? We would venture to suggest that next year’s budget will become a genuine political test. That will be when it becomes clear which government agencies, enterprises, social programmes, and investment projects will have to bear the cost of the promised deficit reduction. It is reasonable to assume that the appointment of the little-known Romanian politician Claudiu Nasui as head of the Ministry of Economy was made, among other things, with the aim of “trimming” the budget, with much of the blame later likely to be placed on him. Yet the appointment itself already looks like an outright admission of PAS’ personnel incompetence and the effective exhaustion of its own pool of qualified personnel. In other words, after five years of one-party rule, the ruling party has proved unable to find a convincing candidate within the country to head one of the key government ministries. Nasui’s libertarian program of shrinking the state, deregulation, privatization, and reducing subsidies will turn our country into a convenient testing ground for economic experiments, the cost of which will certainly not be borne by Sandu, Grosu, or Tofan, but by all of us. The paradox is not that Nasui barely knows Moldova or its specific circumstances, nor that he has no ties to, or accountability toward, our society. The real paradox is that for five years PAS has ostensibly been fighting against external governance and outside influence. And yet here we are, with yet another “outsider” being brought in to serve as a minister, accountable, if anyone, only to those who invited him. Not wasting any time, Nasui has already publicly hinted at the need to privatize Chisinau International Airport. This sheds considerable light on why this particular person has appeared in our country. Apparently, Bucharest has set its sights not only on the main gas pipelines and the Port of Giurgiulesti. In the coming years, other strategic assets of our country may also be put up for sale. The horrific tragedy that occurred on August 31 provided a stark illustration that the crisis of governance has a human cost as well as a financial one. The murder in Magdacesti exposed the failure of the probation system, which, as is well known, had been “reformed” precisely to prevent such incidents from happening. The victim complied with all the requirements of the law, while the state failed to fulfil its part of the obligations, ultimately costing a human life. This episode vividly undermines one of PAS’ original promises to build a state governed by the rule of law. PAS undoubtedly still retains its parliamentary majority. However, the regime is increasingly shifting from “dominant” politics to managing problems as they arise. The authorities are more frequently forced to justify themselves, dismiss individual officials, and promise new reforms after every new failure. Such a crisis-management approach may prolong the existence of the current government for some time, but the prospects of restoring the trust it has lost among citizens and voters are becoming increasingly remote. PAS’ strategic problem lies not so much in its declining ratings and seemingly endless succession of scandals as in the exhaustion of its political resources at the conceptual level. Much the same happened with Voronin’s Communists and Plahotniuc’s Democrats. Despite their monopoly on power and the apparent manageability of the system, they ultimately failed to offer society a clear and convincing vision of the future. I would venture to suggest that the current regime is likewise hardly capable of answering a simple question: why should the next stage of its rule prove more successful than the previous ones?