Moldova’s New Puppet Masters

Today marks exactly two months since Vasile Tofan’s government was approved. That is certainly too little time to assess its performance but quite enough to see how power is organized. Since Dorin Recean’s departure, two prime ministers have already taken office, yet the fundamentals have remained largely unchanged – the political course, the personnel architecture, and the decision-making process. In practice, the rotation at the top has amounted to little more than a change of nameplate on the prime minister’s door. At first glance, Tofan came in with a reputation as a manager from outside the party bureaucracy. His deliberately business-oriented background was meant to project an image of someone capable of restoring rationality and discipline to the state. After Munteanu’s brief and unsuccessful tenure, the reshuffle looked like almost the last option left to the PAS. However, talk of the new prime minister’s independence soon came up against the political realities of Moldova. Reports began to emerge in the press and among analysts of a latent conflict between the new premier and the security agencies, reportedly over attempts to reshuffle their leadership. Those efforts, however, soon ran into insurmountable obstacles, including personal resistance from Recean, who was defending officials appointed under his official tenure. In late August, Tofan publicly acknowledged that during his first month in office he had met with Recean three times to discuss security matters. People familiar with the situation, however, claim that contacts between the sitting and former prime ministers are considerably more frequent. But what drew the most attention was Tofan’s remark that Recean “had been involved in many matters relating to the security sector” and that, for this reason, the new prime minister wanted to have the sector transferred to his authority. This is unusual: in a normal system of government, responsibilities are transferred from one officeholder to the next through established procedures, backed by official documents, departmental reports and decisions by the competent authorities. Tofan’s immediate predecessor was Alexandru Munteanu, not Recean, who by then held no government post and had no formal executive authority. This raises an obvious question: how can someone who left office as far back as 2025 be the one handing over information? On what grounds does he control the relevant dossier? And who has given this special envoy the authority to effectively act as coordinator of the security sector? On the other hand, Recean’s return to government was hardly a secret. Last December, Maia Sandu appointed him as a special envoy for development and sustainability. The position carried no salary, separate office or conventional administrative staff, but did involve coordinating the efforts of various institutions, including those aimed at countering hybrid threats. It was precisely the vagueness of the position that became its main political advantage. While formally heading no ministries, he effectively has full access to the part of the system that forms the core of national security. Shortly beforehand, Recean had set up a Crisis Management Centre, with a staff of 30 and a budget of 20 million lei, seemingly in preparation for his future position. The centre appears to serve as a mechanism for hands-on control of the state’s security apparatus. It is no coincidence that the opposition has dubbed it a “shadow government” – functionally, it duplicates institutions that already exist, including the Supreme Security Council. Given that the new body has shown no meaningful role in preventing incidents, the impression has gradually taken hold that it was created not to manage crises, but rather to concentrate and control political power. The most telling example of Recean’s brief emergence from the shadows came with the MoldATSA affair. At the height of the state-owned company’s scandal, Sandu’s envoy joined its administrative board on an unpaid basis, with the routine official explanation that he was there to “help clarify the situation.” Taken together, episodes like this point to one conclusion: despite his declared withdrawal from politics, Dorin Recean has not in fact stepped away from the levers of power. He has simply traded a high-profile public office for a more flexible and informal role. As a result, the centre of political and strategic decision-making has shifted from government and ministerial offices to the corridors of the party headquarters and closed-door collegial bodies that, according to media reports, are coordinated by Recean himself. Our society has seen a similar political “drama” before, during Vlad Plahotniuc’s time, when the mechanisms of governing the country were likewise operating outside the constitutional framework. The irony is that the PAS came to power on a wave of struggle against precisely that model, promising de-oligarchization and a restoration of legitimacy to state institutions. Yet the practice of the past year has reproduced the model in much the same way. Only the scenery has changed: an overt state capture is now packaged as “European modernization.” The fact that Vasile Tofan is trying to alter the existing governing structure points to fragmentation within the ruling party and the prime minister’s efforts to build support among particular political groups. This most likely means the PAS’s business wing, with its focus on investors and preference for more modern forms of governance. Unable to break through a bureaucratic system controlled from outside, Tofan is seeking to build his own tightly knit management team. Last week, the government proposed establishing an office to oversee strategic infrastructure projects named “Moldova Project.” It is intended to bring together expertise, procurement and project management functions that are currently scattered across different institutions. In the prime minister’s view, this corporate-style instrument could help get complex investment projects moving within a self-contained structure, with a designated manager, clear deadlines and a controlled budget. The performance of this new structure is likely to become the key measure of Tofan’s effectiveness and, to a large extent, determine how long he remains in office. The PAS insists that the current prime minister will make it through to the next electoral cycle, while the opposition and a significant share of experts are betting on an earlier resignation, arguing that Tofan is bound to hit a dead end because he lacks the real levers needed to reform the state’s governing system. In principle, the next change of prime minister could be made without much hesitation – if necessary, Recean can find another candidate, as the recruitment pipeline is already well established. But with each such cycle, the ruling establishment risks losing the remaining public trust, as voters are unlikely to see much prospect in puppet governments. By autumn 2026, Moldova has reached a systemic crisis of governance. The evidence outlined above points to a clear conclusion – the PAS is no longer able to govern the country through democratic procedures and has instead shifted Moldova towards behind-the-scenes rule. As noted above, Moldova went through this before under Plahotniuc and knows the price of such a model of governance: years of stagnation, diplomatic isolation, and deep public distrust of the authorities and state institutions. Today’s puppet masters would do well to remember what happened to their predecessors and how quickly even the most carefully constructed “shadow theatre” can collapse.