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PRO-WESTERN GOVERNING ALLIANCE POSSIBLE IN MOLDOVA
by Vladimir Socor
Eurasia Daily Monitor -- The Jamestown Foundation
Monday, March 14, 2005 -- Volume 2, Issue 50
On March 11, Moldova's Central Electoral Commission released the final
results of the country's March 6 parliamentary elections. The outcome,
verified by election observers in parallel vote-counting, shows the
Communist Party with 56 parliamentary seats (one more than initially
announced), the heterogeneous Bloc Moldova Democrata controlled by
pro-Moscow leaders with 34 seats (one fewer than initially announced),
and the right-wing Christian-Democrat People's Party with 11 seats in
the 101-seat legislature. Thus the Communists, BMD, and CDPP garnered
46%, 28.5%, and 9%, respectively, of the votes cast. The other
parties and blocs failed to clear the parliamentary representation
thresholds. Among those who failed, three Russian left-nationalist
groups garnered almost 9 percent of the vote between them. (Moldpres,
March 11, 12).
Under Moldova's constitution, the parliament elects the head of
state with a majority of at least three-fifths of its membership
and approves the president's nomination of a prime minister and the
composition of the cabinet with a simple parliamentary majority.
The pro-Western team of Communist President Vladimir Voronin needs 61
votes to re-elect the president and 51 votes to approve a new cabinet
of ministers. Thus, it can form the cabinet single-handedly, and can
probably secure the president's re-election by making tactical deals
with at least five, or preferably seven or eight, BMD members (unless
the Moscow operatives now active in Chisinau manage to lure some
Communist deputies away from Voronin quickly). One "centrist" faction
within BMD seems inclined toward such a tactical arrangement with
the president and perhaps further opportunistic deals down the road.
However, the presidential team and some groups of the traditional
pro-Western opposition are now considering the possibility of
joining together in a parliamentary and governing alliance. The
formation of such an alliance would signify a sea change to Moldova's
politics, bringing together for the first time since 1991 some of
the anti-communist groups and the reformed section of the Communist
Party. A realignment along these lines is being referred to as
"national-interest alliance" or "pro-Europe alliance" in the internal
discussions now under way in Chisinau.
Three parallel processes have opened this prospect, which had seemed
beyond imagination only months ago, and which moved within a few
insiders' grasp during the final phase of the electoral campaign.
Those processes are: First, the presidential team's Western
reorientation (itself accelerated by Moscow's heavy-handed pressures
on official Chisinau). Second, a realization by some pro-Western
opposition leaders that they must graduate at long last from the role
of protesters on the margins of the political system into the role
of national decision-makers and participants in governance. And, the
third and latest process, Moscow's overt sponsorship of pro-Russian
"centrist" leaders in Chisinau, who dominate a confused and partly
corrupted BMD, and who must be prevented from creating a large
pro-Russian political bloc together with some diehard communists and
Russian left-nationalist groups.
A national-interest or pro-Europe alliance could: ensure the continuity
of Voronin's European course; accelerate that course and broaden
its parliamentary and extra-parliamentary political basis; isolate
BMD's pro-Moscow leaders; include the traditional pro-Western and
indeed anti-communist groups into the decision-making processes for
the first time in more than a decade; enable these groups to prepare
for better results in the 2009 parliamentary elections; and achieve
an overdue reconfiguration of Moldova's political system, as the
Communist Party reforms itself into a European-type Socialist Party,
alongside Christian-Democrats and Liberals. Voronin and his aides
envisage such a reform of their party as one of the prerequisites to
the creation of a value-based coalition.
Preliminary discussions toward that end began even before the March
6 elections and accelerated afterward. The participants envisage
an alliance for the duration of the four-year mandate of this
parliament. Any programmatic document would have to stipulate:
scrupulous implementation of the European Union-Moldova Action
Plan, which was signed in Brussels on February 22; completion
of the internal reform agenda, itemizing specific goals -- e.g.,
independence of the judiciary, administrative decentralization, turning
state-controlled television and radio into genuine public institutions,
cracking down on corruption, radically improving the legislative and
regulatory framework for Western investment -- with time-tables for
implementation; intensifying efforts to rid the country of Russian
troops, and working toward a democratic solution to the Transnistria
problem with international support.
Participants in these discussions believe that they must
proceed cautiously and explain their steps properly to their
core electorates. At the same time, they realize that they need
to act expeditiously so as to preempt Moscow's effort to assemble
a pro-Russian coalition under BMD's top leaders -- Chisinau mayor
Serafim Urecheanu, former prime minister Dumitru Braghis, and other
late-Soviet nomenklatura holdovers -- alongside the Russian-leftist
Rodina movement and anti-Voronin defectors from the Communist
Party. The Christian-Democrats are keenly aware of this dangerous
possibility. Within the BMD, several social-liberal and liberal
deputies who never felt at home in that bloc (they joined it on
external advice and against their own better judgment) seem ready to
abandon the pro-Moscow leaders and to consider becoming one of the
parties to a value-based alliance.
Vladimir Socor
by Vladimir Socor
Eurasia Daily Monitor -- The Jamestown Foundation
Monday, March 14, 2005 -- Volume 2, Issue 50
On March 11, Moldova's Central Electoral Commission released the final
results of the country's March 6 parliamentary elections. The outcome,
verified by election observers in parallel vote-counting, shows the
Communist Party with 56 parliamentary seats (one more than initially
announced), the heterogeneous Bloc Moldova Democrata controlled by
pro-Moscow leaders with 34 seats (one fewer than initially announced),
and the right-wing Christian-Democrat People's Party with 11 seats in
the 101-seat legislature. Thus the Communists, BMD, and CDPP garnered
46%, 28.5%, and 9%, respectively, of the votes cast. The other
parties and blocs failed to clear the parliamentary representation
thresholds. Among those who failed, three Russian left-nationalist
groups garnered almost 9 percent of the vote between them. (Moldpres,
March 11, 12).
Under Moldova's constitution, the parliament elects the head of
state with a majority of at least three-fifths of its membership
and approves the president's nomination of a prime minister and the
composition of the cabinet with a simple parliamentary majority.
The pro-Western team of Communist President Vladimir Voronin needs 61
votes to re-elect the president and 51 votes to approve a new cabinet
of ministers. Thus, it can form the cabinet single-handedly, and can
probably secure the president's re-election by making tactical deals
with at least five, or preferably seven or eight, BMD members (unless
the Moscow operatives now active in Chisinau manage to lure some
Communist deputies away from Voronin quickly). One "centrist" faction
within BMD seems inclined toward such a tactical arrangement with
the president and perhaps further opportunistic deals down the road.
However, the presidential team and some groups of the traditional
pro-Western opposition are now considering the possibility of
joining together in a parliamentary and governing alliance. The
formation of such an alliance would signify a sea change to Moldova's
politics, bringing together for the first time since 1991 some of
the anti-communist groups and the reformed section of the Communist
Party. A realignment along these lines is being referred to as
"national-interest alliance" or "pro-Europe alliance" in the internal
discussions now under way in Chisinau.
Three parallel processes have opened this prospect, which had seemed
beyond imagination only months ago, and which moved within a few
insiders' grasp during the final phase of the electoral campaign.
Those processes are: First, the presidential team's Western
reorientation (itself accelerated by Moscow's heavy-handed pressures
on official Chisinau). Second, a realization by some pro-Western
opposition leaders that they must graduate at long last from the role
of protesters on the margins of the political system into the role
of national decision-makers and participants in governance. And, the
third and latest process, Moscow's overt sponsorship of pro-Russian
"centrist" leaders in Chisinau, who dominate a confused and partly
corrupted BMD, and who must be prevented from creating a large
pro-Russian political bloc together with some diehard communists and
Russian left-nationalist groups.
A national-interest or pro-Europe alliance could: ensure the continuity
of Voronin's European course; accelerate that course and broaden
its parliamentary and extra-parliamentary political basis; isolate
BMD's pro-Moscow leaders; include the traditional pro-Western and
indeed anti-communist groups into the decision-making processes for
the first time in more than a decade; enable these groups to prepare
for better results in the 2009 parliamentary elections; and achieve
an overdue reconfiguration of Moldova's political system, as the
Communist Party reforms itself into a European-type Socialist Party,
alongside Christian-Democrats and Liberals. Voronin and his aides
envisage such a reform of their party as one of the prerequisites to
the creation of a value-based coalition.
Preliminary discussions toward that end began even before the March
6 elections and accelerated afterward. The participants envisage
an alliance for the duration of the four-year mandate of this
parliament. Any programmatic document would have to stipulate:
scrupulous implementation of the European Union-Moldova Action
Plan, which was signed in Brussels on February 22; completion
of the internal reform agenda, itemizing specific goals -- e.g.,
independence of the judiciary, administrative decentralization, turning
state-controlled television and radio into genuine public institutions,
cracking down on corruption, radically improving the legislative and
regulatory framework for Western investment -- with time-tables for
implementation; intensifying efforts to rid the country of Russian
troops, and working toward a democratic solution to the Transnistria
problem with international support.
Participants in these discussions believe that they must
proceed cautiously and explain their steps properly to their
core electorates. At the same time, they realize that they need
to act expeditiously so as to preempt Moscow's effort to assemble
a pro-Russian coalition under BMD's top leaders -- Chisinau mayor
Serafim Urecheanu, former prime minister Dumitru Braghis, and other
late-Soviet nomenklatura holdovers -- alongside the Russian-leftist
Rodina movement and anti-Voronin defectors from the Communist
Party. The Christian-Democrats are keenly aware of this dangerous
possibility. Within the BMD, several social-liberal and liberal
deputies who never felt at home in that bloc (they joined it on
external advice and against their own better judgment) seem ready to
abandon the pro-Moscow leaders and to consider becoming one of the
parties to a value-based alliance.
Vladimir Socor