Very interesting events described yesterday! The whole story of the elections in Bălți, in particular, has tragi-comic aspects ... I am not a fan of the Șor Party (nor of Tauber) at all, but I have the impression that this time the CEC confused it badly ... However, I also noticed a typical Moldovan anomaly: PAS (along with PLDM) are full member parties of the International Democrat Union, the international right-wing conservative party. (https://www.idu.org/members/) At the same time, the IDU includes a regional political union: the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Party. Of which the Șor Party is a part! (https://ecrparty.eu/about#family) In a way, we can say that PAS and ȘOR are colleagues, even if indirectly, within IDU, because, theoretically, they share the same ideology and the same values of the right! This, even PAS, in its Statute, declares itself a party with social-liberal doctrine (so, center-left), and ȘOR is known for the eminently left-wing political approaches and for the pro-Russian tendency. I give these data here only for scientific rigor, I do not judge them. (However, I can't understand how the hell the Șor Party was received in the ECR Party?!? Stupidity or corruption?)
Turning to another topic now, as I suppose you know, Ghenadie Tanas was exposed as corrupt by a fellow citizen of the same city, Ungheni, namely Andrian Cheptonar. He worked at SIS for a while and is now a PAS deputy. No wonder, then, that as a former (and current?) Member of the secret services, he had access to a lot of data about Tanas. In any case, justice must be done.
P.S. If you ever consider a serious and exhaustive analysis of Moldovan parties, I would be happy to give you a helping hand if you deem it necessary.
So, about the international party affiliations... ugh what a mess. I completely agree there is a lot of inconsistency there all over the place. As I wrote about before I think Moldova doesn't really have a "left" or "right" in practice with the exception of some fringe parties like AUR and Shor. Even then they are more populist than actually left or right wing in any economic or ideological sense. I think an actual run down of parties would be a very interesting article but very challenging. My gut is that within almost every political party in Moldova there are left and right wing thinkers. The party organization is therefore not really about left / right but about either money and oligarchy (Shor, PD), Russian backing (Socialist) and anti-corruption / rejection of the above (PAS). These descriptors may be more or less accurate in reality but they are a kind of internal sorting mechanism for sure.
If PAS is successful at "cleansing" the system, I think that it will wind up being new parties that move into a more plural political future. Eventually a left / right sorting is inevitable (if politics becomes about more than theft) and a lot of inner party sorting will happen.
As to Ghenadie Tanas, I don't know about this expose you are talking about. But I found it notable that the common element with most prosecutions these days was previous investigative reporting by ZdG. It seems that prosecutors are following the bread crumbs left by years of good journalism and finally we are seeing the 4th estate keep the powers that be in check... somewhat. We'll have to see how this goes :)
Hi David!
Very interesting events described yesterday! The whole story of the elections in Bălți, in particular, has tragi-comic aspects ... I am not a fan of the Șor Party (nor of Tauber) at all, but I have the impression that this time the CEC confused it badly ... However, I also noticed a typical Moldovan anomaly: PAS (along with PLDM) are full member parties of the International Democrat Union, the international right-wing conservative party. (https://www.idu.org/members/) At the same time, the IDU includes a regional political union: the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Party. Of which the Șor Party is a part! (https://ecrparty.eu/about#family) In a way, we can say that PAS and ȘOR are colleagues, even if indirectly, within IDU, because, theoretically, they share the same ideology and the same values of the right! This, even PAS, in its Statute, declares itself a party with social-liberal doctrine (so, center-left), and ȘOR is known for the eminently left-wing political approaches and for the pro-Russian tendency. I give these data here only for scientific rigor, I do not judge them. (However, I can't understand how the hell the Șor Party was received in the ECR Party?!? Stupidity or corruption?)
Turning to another topic now, as I suppose you know, Ghenadie Tanas was exposed as corrupt by a fellow citizen of the same city, Ungheni, namely Andrian Cheptonar. He worked at SIS for a while and is now a PAS deputy. No wonder, then, that as a former (and current?) Member of the secret services, he had access to a lot of data about Tanas. In any case, justice must be done.
P.S. If you ever consider a serious and exhaustive analysis of Moldovan parties, I would be happy to give you a helping hand if you deem it necessary.
Hi Tino! thanks for the comment!
So, about the international party affiliations... ugh what a mess. I completely agree there is a lot of inconsistency there all over the place. As I wrote about before I think Moldova doesn't really have a "left" or "right" in practice with the exception of some fringe parties like AUR and Shor. Even then they are more populist than actually left or right wing in any economic or ideological sense. I think an actual run down of parties would be a very interesting article but very challenging. My gut is that within almost every political party in Moldova there are left and right wing thinkers. The party organization is therefore not really about left / right but about either money and oligarchy (Shor, PD), Russian backing (Socialist) and anti-corruption / rejection of the above (PAS). These descriptors may be more or less accurate in reality but they are a kind of internal sorting mechanism for sure.
If PAS is successful at "cleansing" the system, I think that it will wind up being new parties that move into a more plural political future. Eventually a left / right sorting is inevitable (if politics becomes about more than theft) and a lot of inner party sorting will happen.
As to Ghenadie Tanas, I don't know about this expose you are talking about. But I found it notable that the common element with most prosecutions these days was previous investigative reporting by ZdG. It seems that prosecutors are following the bread crumbs left by years of good journalism and finally we are seeing the 4th estate keep the powers that be in check... somewhat. We'll have to see how this goes :)