Weekly Roundup
July 31 - August 6
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Moldova has a New Government
On Friday morning the parliament gathered to vote in the PAS government formed by newly elected Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita. This process involves the candidate for Prime Minister presenting her program, cabinet of ministers and immediate priorities. Following this members of parliament are given time to ask questions of the proposed prime minister and then there is a floor vote. The proceedings began well with Gavrilita stressing her top priorities (outlined below) and insisting that this government would be honest and would fight corrupt schemes.
Unfortunately, and rather inauspiciously, the weather in Chisinau today has been extremely poor with high winds, extremely heavy rain, thunder and lightning and a sky as dark as night. This external reality intervened in the process of question and answer when the power went out in parliament. Representatives attempted to continue work under the emergency lighting with speaker Igor Grosu joking that “we have voted for a government in the dark before.” His comment referred to the events of June 2019 where Plahotnuic cut power to the parliament to prevent his ouster from power. This adaptable spirit was cut short when an alarm started and the building needed to be evacuated with journalists being led out front. There, they found themselves stuck in the parliament yard as the electronic gates would not let anyone leave without power. Thankfully, this situation was resolved in around 15 minutes and journalists were let back in, reporting that the building now smelled like “burnt food.” Journalists also noted that none of the exit signs remained lit during the power outage implying quite a few problems with the parliament’s fire safety system.
In spite of these rather strange interventions by the weather and technical problems, the parliament was able to reconvene after a short break and continue the people’s business. The government of Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita was voted for by 61 PAS deputies and received no support from the Socialists, Communists or Shor parties. It has not yet been reported which 2 PAS deputies did not vote for the government, but at least 10 deputies total were not present today due to health or family reasons. One of them, Igor Dodon, did not explain his absence but was in Moscow for “consultations.”
Moldova has a new Government.
Prime Minister Gavrilita announced her cabinet of ministers and government program earlier this week. Notably, she has chosen to reorganize the government into 13 ministries instead of the previous 9. The Democratic Party under Mr. Plahotnuic previously reduced the ministries from 13 to 9 so this is a reversal to the previous governing system. In explaining her decision the PM said that currently there are too many divergent responsibilities within each ministry. She gave as an example the previous Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure. In her new structure there will be a Ministry of Economy and a Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Development. The Prime Minister explained that she wants the Minister of Economy to focus on supporting small business, developing new programs for entrepreneurs, promoting Moldovan products on international markets and bringing new investments to Moldova. Meanwhile, the Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development should oversee the regional development agencies, public procurement, manage large road and infrastructure projects and implement high standards in construction. Simply put, these were too many jobs for one person. The Prime Minister explained that similar situations happened in the Ministry of Education and Culture (not the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Education) and others.
Additionally, the Prime Minister named Moldova’s first Deputy Prime Minister for Digitization. The role of a Deputy Prime Minister in Moldova is often to target a specific area of governance that is important to the Prime Minister. In this case, Prime Minister Gavrilita explained that Moldova’s E-governance Agency needs strong management. The country has the capability to move many more services online and to be more transparent about government actions. But the E-governance Agency has faced resistance from various ministries in the past and has not had the standing to force them into the modern age. Having a Deputy Prime Minister coordinating the digitization process across all ministries should bring the political capital necessary to move more and more services online and force ministries to interconnect their systems.
In presenting the program of action for the new government, Prime Minister Gavrilita indicated that there are four immediate priorities for her government.
1) Managing the Pandemic Crisis
Specifically, the plan calls for increased coordination between government agencies around monitoring and publicly communicating the current state of the pandemic. This includes strategic messaging and information campaigns to be created to reach elements of the population who do not have the best information and to encourage vaccination and compliance with public health rules. They propose increased testing capacity and the provision of more free testing especially in hospitals and medical institutions. Finally, the program proposes broad stakeholder consultations and measures to support business as restrictions and rules are changed based on the dynamic state of the pandemic.
2) Justice Reform and Anti-Corruption Actions
In this area, they propose large scale dismissals of corrupt or ineffective public servants in order to clear out corrupt interests from the bureaucracy. They propose “profound” judicial reform and fighting major corruption by streamlining the prosecutor’s office and speeding up cases that have long been bogged down in the courts. This will involve more transparent selections of judges, sanctions on officials who illegally delay cases and ensuring broader access to the press. Finally, stricter regulations on the declarations of assets by public officials will be implemented to root out illegally obtained wealth.
3) Social Assistance to the Most Vulnerable
The new government proposes immediate action to raise the minimum pension amount to 2000 lei / month and to increase disability payments as well as employer subsidies for employees with disabilities in order to stimulate employment. They additionally propose mechanisms to promote social entrepreneurship and elderly care programs.
4) Restoring External Financing
The new government plans to reopen communications with the EU and IMF that were largely lost under the previous Socialist government. This includes taking actions to allow Moldova greater access to EU macro financial assistance as well as IMF programs. The new government hopes that this will allow for the creation of emergency funding mechanisms for supporting small and medium businesses through the COVID economic crisis.
These four focus areas represent a bold and ambitious short term target for the new government. The full government program includes much more information but is beyond the scope of a short Weekly Roundup. At Moldova Matters we will put out a series of “Deep Dives” into the program and the new ministers in the coming weeks.
Parliament Gets to Work
In addition to naming and voting in the new government, parliament has begun legislating with the first new bill proposed being amendments to the National Integrity Authority (ANI). The ANI is tasked with taking wealth and income declarations from all public officials and sanctioning those who lie about their assets. The new bill, proposed by PAS MP Olessea Stamate, will clarify the powers of ANI inspectors while mandating that officials submit real valuations of their property. Currently, Moldova has a very strange dual value system when it comes to property, especially housing and cars. For example, an apartment will have a “cadastral” or book value which is the cost of that property registered with the government. These values are almost always very low and do not reflect the actual sale values of the asset. Banks regularly evaluate the real value of assets for mortgages and other financial transactions. But the state system does not use these values and generally maintains greatly reduced valuations which officials use for declarations and the state uses for tax purposes. Changing the mandate of the ANI to gather and make public the real assessed value of property will shed quite a lot of light on the actual wealth of “public servants” and their families.
A Dirty Election was Nearly Much Dirtier
As we have discussed many times at Moldova Matters, the last election involved lots of negative and underhanded campaign tactics. Specifically these were driven by oligarchic figures working very hard to prevent a reformist government coming to power. New reporting by Jurnal TV has found that things were almost quite a bit worse. Reporting alleges that businessman oligarch Veaceslav Platon hired “trolls” to make altered video showing President Maia Sandu meeting with Ilan Shor and taking an envelope from him. This video “deep fake” was not particularly well done and clearly uses a woman taller than the President as the basis for the fake. The plan was to release the deep fake right on the eve of the election in order to prevent PAS from mounting an effective defense before voters went to the polls. This plan was accidentally disrupted by law enforcement while carrying out an unrelated search and seizure related to Mr. Platon’s alleged intimidation and stalking of a judge. One of the computers seized had the video on it which then leaked to Jurnal TV. Commenting on the video, Ilan Shor stated that it was clearly a poor fake and bad quality. He lamented the state of the political system that would resort to such underhanded tricks and illegal tactics. An ironic statement coming from his unknown hiding place abroad.
Commenting on the report, the Security and Information Service, as well as the prosecutor’s office, denied that they confiscated any computers when searching Mr. Platon’s property. Mr. Platon also denied the reporting saying that no computers were taken from him. Jurnal TV seems to be standing by their story so… it’s unclear where the video came from?
COVID-19 Update
New COVID infections continue to slowly rise in Moldova with a 7 day average 143 cases per day and 2.2 deaths. Vaccine stockpiles remain high and Moldova received an additional 200,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson this week from the United States. While the vaccination program remains slow it is moving steadily with around 9,000 vaccinations per day. The outgoing interim government announced that they are preparing to follow WHO guidance and begin vaccinations of 12-16 year olds with the Pfizer vaccine. Currently they note that there are insufficient stocks of Pfizer for this process but more doses are coming and the program is being prepared.
Mandatory Vaccination?
Meanwhile, the Orthodox Church staged a large protest outside the government building against mandatory vaccinations. Protestors, which included many priests and nuns, held up signs saying "mandates take away my freedoms" and "my body my choice" as well as others. Church officials say that it welcomes vaccines and supports science BUT can't speak on medical topics. Then, they go on to do so saying that vaccines should be voluntary and people should do their own research. It seems unclear if the church representative understood the contradiction of saying “we can’t talk about medicine” and then immediately weighing in on vaccine policy. As we have talked about in the past at Moldova Matters, the Orthodox Church has routinely protested mask mandates and agitated to be allowed to gather large crowds indoors for services. Further, they have not been shy about speaking on health topics at the pulpit including this memorable quote - “the church is for spiritual healing and you should see blessings in illness. The Pandemic came from people having a hectic life and relation with god.“
In response, the health authorities noted that Moldova does not have any mandatory vaccination rules at this time. They also noted that the WHO recommends against mandatory vaccinations so Moldova is unlikely to follow that path in the future. When asked by a journalist about the mandate that companies vaccinate 70% of their workers by September 1 the official stated that this is not a mandate at all. Simply, companies must “assure” that it is done.
This contradiction between a requirement and a mandate is unfortunately very characteristic of the dysfunctional pandemic response of the last year. Officials mandate that employers vaccinate the employees with a not so subtle threat to close companies that do not do so. Meanwhile, it is illegal for employers to fire employees who are not vaccinated or to use either compulsion or incentives to get them vaccinated. So, given this mandate and no legal mechanism, employers are being asked to somehow coerce their employees outside of any strict legal avenue. In this way, officials can say we have no mandates, while forcing business to do the work for them. The new government has quite a lot of challenges, but building some modicum of trust between business and government is going to be a major early challenge due to legacy policies such as this.
Economic Update - Municipal Bonds are Coming
Regulations allowing towns and cities to issue municipal bonds for the first time came into force this week. Immediately, the towns of Ceadir-Lunga and Singerei announced they would be issuing bonds to fund local infrastructure projects. Singerei will install city water pipes - improving the system and connecting 300 more houses to water. Ceadir-Lunga will repair 11 roads and sidewalk systems. All local bonds will carry a 6.5-6.7% interest rate and be regulated by the national authorities. Specifically, towns may not issue bonds at a rate that exceeds 20% of their planned budget for the year. Additionally, in the case of an economic downturn or budget crisis, bond payments have the highest priority within the budget. This is the beginning of Moldova’s first real experiment with local public debt being used to finance projects. It will be an important trend to watch as the PAS party implements their promise to continue to devolve more and more budgetary control to local government.
Crime and Corruption Update
“Usurpation of Power”
The Chisinau Court of Appeals ruled that the Prosecutor General is obliged to open a case investigating the attempts of the Socialist and Shor Parties to usurp power by illegally attempting to take control of the Constitutional Court this spring. Specifically, the court requires the prosecutor to target Boris Lupashka who was illegally appointed to the court and sworn in before the attempt to seize power failed. Previously the Prosecutor General has refused to take up this case citing procedural difficulties.
Dorin Damir Investigation Expands
Due to the overwhelming amount of news these past months, we have not had time at Moldova Matters to dive into the curious case of Dorin Damir, a close associate of Mr. Plahotniuc. Mr. Damir is the President of the Moldova Fighting and Entertainment Association FEA which promotes judo and various mixed martial arts. He was arrested July 5th along with the head of the Balti Police and an inspector from the Balti border police. According to prosecutors, the Balti police falsely credentialed Mr. Damir as an undercover agent and provided him with documents and a fake identity as Dumitru Busuik. He was provided with access to state secrets and his file as an agent was classified to cover up the crime. What Mr. Damir was up to with his false identity remains unclear but he used these documents to repeatedly travel to Kyiv and never at any time did work for the police. This week, Alexander Pynzar was arrested in connection with these alleged crimes. At the time, Mr. Pynzar was the head of the General Inspectorate of the Police making him Moldova’s top law enforcement officer. Later Alexander Pynzar went on to be the defense minister under Mr. Plahotniuc. Plahotnuic’s democratic party is outraged at these arrests and has been protesting loudly on social media - agitation sure to fire up the several thousands of people who voted for them across Moldova.
The actual purpose of this false identity remains unclear, but we’ll follow this case as it progresses and perhaps moves closer to Mr. Plahotniuc himself.
Judge Ceaus has been Found
This week, Judge Ceaus, missing after being very publicly kidnapped in Chisinau this spring, was found. The Ukrainian judge apparently walked into a small Ukrainian village wearing nothing but his underwear. There he requested to be in contact with the Ukraininan Security and Intelligence services SBU. Currently, the judge is receiving medical treatment and is in the “care” of the SBU. The anti-corruption court ordered that he be placed under house arrest in a secure location for questioning. The judge’s lawyer stated that he believes he was always being held by the security services of Ukraine and that he was tortured. He also says that the original 2017 case of bribery was fake because no one saw where the judge got $150,000 or just why he chose to bury the cash in his yard. So it is quite clear his lawyer is not exactly objective.
If you want to refresh your memory of the strange saga of Judge Ceaus check out our past coverage at Moldova Matters. A Very Public Kidnapping;Where is Judge Ceaus?; Former Judge Ceaus Resurfaces.
Ending on a High Note!
This week’s high note is simply a reflection of what the news of the week means. With a new government supported by a large majority in parliament Moldova has finally left the period of political instability that has ruled for the last few years. Arguably, there has not been a situation with this level of stable and organized government since Mr. Voronin left power in 2009. The era of fractious coalitions, state capture and oligarchic “free reign” has come to an end. It remains to be seen how well this PAS government can deliver on its promises but one thing we can say - this is a new chapter for Moldova.
And consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work at Moldova matters. For just $5 / month, the price of a nice coffee, you can support this work and help us expand into even better content!