Socialists Nominate Alexandr Stoianoglo for President
Deep Dive: July 9, 2024
Hello and welcome back to Moldova Matters! This morning I sat down to write a Weekly Roundup starting with some big news about the presidential race. Pretty quickly I realized that I really needed to give this story more attention, and specifically context, than a section of the Weekly Roundup would allow, so I’ve decided to do a stand alone article focusing on this top story of the week. Tomorrow I’ll be back with a roundup article catching you up on other important news from around Moldova.
Igor Dodon Announces He is Not Running, Socialists Will Support Stoianoglo
Yesterday, July 8th, Igor Dodon announced that he will not run for president and that the Socialist Party will support former Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo. The former president called on opposition leaders to unite behind Stoianoglo, who he called a "non-partisan" candidate. Speaking at the press conference he stated:
"Such a candidate, with a strong character and the highest professional and human qualities, is Mr. Alexandr Stoianoglo, whom the Party of Socialists and I personally will support with all confidence in these presidential elections, and our goal is to win them,"
Speaking after this announcement Mr. Stoianoglo stressed that he is not a politician, supports Moldova’s European path and also supports Moldova’s neutrality saying:
“I have no political projects behind me, but at the same time I am able to communicate with politicians who have not communicated with each other for several years.” …
"Many know that I am a supporter of the [European] integration of the Republic of Moldova, but it hurts me when European integration is used as a stick and not as an ambitious prerogative for the modernization of the country and the unity of the people. It is disgusting to see how a neutral Moldova is turned into a battlefield, a conflict territory, and not only the party in power is used in this game. A European Moldova must be neutral, where there is room for cooperation between countries and peoples, a place with high social guarantees,"
Who is Alexandr Stoianoglo?
The first thing to know about Mr. Stoianoglo is that contrary to what he and Mr. Dodon stated, he is a career politician. Stoianoglo, who is from Gagauzia, twice ran for the office of Bashkan as an independent, in 2006 and 2014, losing both races. He ran for parliament on the list of Plahotniuc’s Democratic Party (PD) and served in parliament from 2009 until 2014. While there, he served as Vice President of Parliament from 2009 - 2010. As a member of parliament he supported European Integration as a member of PD, but was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and as part of the Parliamentary Friendship Group with the Russian Federation.
Mr. Stoianoglo reappears in politics in November 29th 20191 when he is appointed Prosecutor General by President Dodon and the newly formed Chicu government. He served in that position until October 20212 when he was suspended amidst investigations into alleged abuse of office and corruption. He was then removed from office in September 2023 following a long political saga, much of which has been cataloged in past Moldova Matters articles.
Like most court cases in Moldova involving politicians, the allegations and cases against Stoianoglo are complex, confusing and slow moving. In February 2024 he was acquitted in the case of abuse of office, a decision being appealed by Anti-Corruption Prosecutors. His case on charges of corruption is still working its way through the courts. In addition, he won a case against Moldova at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on a technical element of his dismissal which awarded him 3600 euros in moral compensation.
The allegations against Stoianoglo basically hinge on his abrupt decision in July 2021 to drop all charges against Veaceslav Platon. Mr. Platon had been convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison related to his (alleged, then proved and now alleged again) role in the Theft of the Billion. Critically Stoianoglo did not ban Platon from leaving the country, but did say at various press conferences that he expected Platon to return from his vacations for court dates. Platon promptly fled to the UK where he still resides.
Prosecutors allege that Platon bribed Stoianoglo 63 million lei ($3.5 million dollars) in order to facilitate his release from prison. They claim that this release has further cost the Moldovan people more than 869 million lei ($48 million dollars) in damages related to unrecovered stolen funds.
Alexandr Stoianoglo is not a household name as a politician. If people do know who he is then it is likely related to the various court cases and political maneuvers related to his time as Prosecutor General. In that case your opinion of him is likely to map pretty closely onto your opinion of President Sandu and PAS. Is Stoianoglo an honest public servant who was unfairly maligned? or a corrupt tool of oligarchic interests? For those who don’t follow politics closely his most interesting personal and political trait is that he isn’t Igor Dodon.
What Happens Next?
It’s important to start with the fact that Dodon’s announcement of support for Stoianoglo was signaled previously. Former President Dodon has consistently stated that he and the Socialist Party wanted to support a common candidate with all of the anti-PAS opposition (except Shor) and he repeatedly named Stoianoglo as a potential common candidate. Throughout the last few months of statements and speculation Mr. Stoianoglo did not make any statements in either direction.
What’s new here is the mechanism of the nomination. Dodon had previously stated that opposition groups should unite around supporting a common independent candidate. Now, this order has been reversed. The Socialist Party has appointed a candidate who they call independent and called on other opposition parties to join them. To do this Dodon has invited opposition leaders to discuss the creation a "Platform for Supporting a Single Candidate" at a meeting this Thursday. He specifically named Communist leader Vladimir Voronin, “Our Party” leader Renato Usatii, PCDM leader Ion Chicu (who is running for President), Mayor Ion Ceban, former Bashkan Irina Vlah, Andrei Năstase (who is also running for President) and PLDM leader Vlad Filat.
Usatii said that he will not be in any meeting with Dodon and Filat. Năstase made a confusing statement alleging that this entire thing was a plot orchestrated by Maia Sandu. We’ll know later this week whether the others show up to the meeting.
Analysis - What’s Going on Here?
Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first:
Alexandr Stoianoglo is a career politician not some non-partisan political outsider. His primary political affiliation has been with Plahotniuc’s PD party.
He has pretty serious court cases pending, but given the glacial speed of Moldova’s judicial system they are unlikely to bother him anytime soon (if ever).
Stoianoglo’s positions on European integration are ambiguous at best. He was a member of the pro-EU PD party, but also joined various groups in parliament promoting closer Russian relations. He claims now to support European integration but qualifies the statements heavily in a way that lets him pivot to attacking PAS. Most critically, he has been nominated by the Socialists - an arch pro-Moscow party.
Expert Opinions
Executive Director of the Institute for Strategic Initiatives, Vladislav Kulminski, stressed that final point in an interview with Moldova 1. In it, he explained that the fact of his nomination by the Socialists will color the perspectives of both the voters and the other opposition parties. If the Socialists had joined other parties to support Stoianoglo as an independent candidate, he may have been able to get away with ambiguity on the question of European Integration. But as a Socialist candidate, he cannot.
Political Scientist Angela Colaţchi, speaking to Newsmaker, went further saying:
“Previously, the Kremlin chose one candidate and invested everything in him. Now the Kremlin keeps its eggs in different baskets. So we will see several Russian candidates,”
She believes that Stoianoglo is being set up as the “soft Russian” candidate and that a “radical Russian” candidate will also likely be nominated in the near future - most likely by Shor / Pobeda (Victory).
Political Analyst Ian Lisnevschi, also speaking to Newsmaker, thinks that this is a sound tactical move by Dodon. He stated:
"For example, Usatii's electorate will never vote for Dodon, and Dodon's electorate will never vote for Usatii. But both electorates can vote for Stoianoglo,"
Time will tell whether the rest of the opposition will unite around a single, Socialist, candidate. But 2 things seem pretty clear with this announcement. Firstly, this move signals a further blow to Igor Dodon’s standing as a major political leader in Moldova. Vladislav Kulminski summed it up saying that Dodon “signed the end of his political career.” This marks the first time since Dodon took control of the Socialist Party in 2011 that he will not be their primary candidate.
Secondly, this move clarifies the last big unknown of the presidential campaign - “which candidate will the Kremlin really be backing in this election?” There has been an assumption that whoever Shor announces will likely be a firebrand with little actual hopes of getting elected. In this case, the conventional wisdom has been that the Kremlin will support a “softer” pro-Russian candidate, perhaps even one who claims to be pro-European. With this announcement we likely know the answer to this question.
One remaining unknown is what position Stoianoglo will take regarding the EU referendum. The Socialist Party indicated this week that they would call on their supporters to boycott the referendum calling it “illegal.” But that decision was not announced by Dodon or Stoianoglo and has not been made final by the party’s leadership bodies.
How the Socialists and Stoianoglo choose to navigate this question will likely foreshadow how they plan to run the rest of this year’s campaign.
On November 14th, 2019 then Prime Minister Maia Sandu’s 5 month old coalition government with the Socialists collapsed. The coalition broke up over disagreements between Prime Minister Sandu and then President Igor Dodon over the appointment of a Prosecutor General. The position had been vacant since July 2019 when Plahotniuc and Shor fled the country during the constitutional crisis which overthrew the Plahotniuc regime. Maia Sandu’s government attempted to change the law to allow the Prime Minister to directly appoint a Prosecutor General in order to break the deadlock and continue promised anti-corruption reforms. President Dodon disagreed and the Socialists teamed up with the remains of Plahotniuc’s PD in order to trigger a vote of no confidence. Stoianoglo was appointed just weeks after the Socialists took power with the help of Plahotniuc’s Democrats.
Recall that PAS won a majority in the July 2021 Parliamentary Elections. Since the collapse of her 2019 government, one of Maia Sandu and PAS’ main goals was the appointment of a clean prosecutor general. This election set up the long saga leading to the removal of Stoianoglo.