Weekly Roundup: Boris Brings Rain and Flooding
September 17, 2024
Storm Boris slammed parts of Central and Eastern Europe over the weekend with widespread flooding in Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria and Moldova. In many areas multiple month’s worth of rain fell in the course of a weekend leaving at least 17 dead at time of writing and towns in multiple countries underwater.
Moldova felt the brunt of Boris over the weekend of September 14-16 but suffered no fatalities due to flooding. Multiple severe road accidents caused by standing water and poor conditions cost lives.
Over the weekend around 2000 emergency service personnel responded to the crisis by clearing roads, pumping water from flooded houses and clearing debris.
Flooding washed out roads in some sections of the country forcing police to redirect traffic.
In Chisinau roads flooded and multiple people were swept away by rising waters, in some cases under the wheels of cars. All were assisted by passersby without fatalities or serious injuries.
Even with the major dredging efforts to clear the river Bic in Chisinau it flooded closing Albisoara and submerging cars that were stuck there.
Moldova suffered major property damage with 56 schools damaged, houses flooded and cars submerged. At the same time the country seems to have gotten luckier than Poland, Austria and Romania where the flood waters have not yet subsided and the crisis is ongoing.
Also - an Earthquake
On September 16th just as the rains were beginning to stop in Chisinau the city felt mild aftershocks from a 5.2 magnitude earthquake in Romania. The quake caught President Sandu live on air doing an interview where she and the host kept quite cool as the studio shook. This has resulted in some “unshakable” memes circulating on twitter posts showing the video.
It’s been an interesting week in Moldova and Chisinau was happy to see the sun on the morning of September 17th for the first time for a while.
Election Updates
This week has been a busy administrative period in the run up to the official campaign period for the presidential election and referendum beginning Friday. Candidates have been submitting the signatures they have collected to secure ballot access which is the last procedural hurdle for those planning to run for president.
The Central Election Commission (CEC) announced their allocation of polling locations for the diaspora this week with the largest number being set in Italy (60) followed by Germany (26). Only 5 polling locations were announced in Russia in spite of an initial plan for 26 polling stations being announced in August. The CEC explained the decision by saying:
“The security situation in Russia has significantly worsened during 2024. Given these risks, the organization of elections in Russia should be carried out with particular caution, and the locations of polling stations should be selected taking into account the level of security in the area of air defense and public order,”
This statement apparently references Ukraine’s ongoing offensive in Kursk and continued drone strikes against Moscow and other sites in Russia.
Parties continue to register their support or opposition positions for the referendum with CUB, Împreună, MAN and PAS registering to support the referendum and the Communists and various Shor-affiliated parties registering against.
The Chance party has been excluded from participating in the referendum after they lost an appeal in court against a suspension of political activities for the party imposed after repeated campaign finance violations.
Asked on a podcast if she expects the diaspora to turn out in the same proportions as the 2020 election President Sandu expressed concern that there will not be as much interest in this election. She stated:
"It's more difficult because people had expectations, and not only in Moldova, but everywhere. People had expectations that in four years everything would change and all the problems would be solved. I don't want to make excuses, although it was difficult, one crisis followed another. But, naturally, for some people, expectations were not fully met. We still keep in touch and try to tell them as much as possible about what we managed to do and what we want to do next. I am very inspired by the fact that Moldovans in the diaspora are interested in Moldova, whether they like Maia Sandu or not, because it means that people have not broken the connection and somewhere deep down they are thinking about returning,"
In 2020 diaspora voters supported President Sandu with more than 92% of the vote in the second round. If turnout falls significantly the President will face a more challenging re-election, especially if opposition candidates consolidate in a potential second round.
One comedic element of the week’s news was presidential candidate and disgraced journalist Natalia Morari’s attempts at answering journalist’s questions about where she is getting the money to run her massive online ad campaign.1 She tried to carefully avoid implying any financial links with her partner, fugitive oligarch Vyacheslav Platon, who she referred to as “my son’s father.” When asked where she gets the money for these campaigns Morari said that she sold her apartment in 2021 and used the money to invest in bitcoin in 2022 - resulting in a windfall profit. She was asked in a followup if Platon provides her with money and she said that she lives on her own savings but that “my son’s father” assists with paying for expenses related to their child. When asked where she lives she said “in my son’s apartment.” Her son Rem is 3 years old.
Other Political News
Here’s a roundup of the other top politics and international affairs stories of the week:
The Moldova Support Platform is meeting in Chisinau. On September 17th the Moldova Support Platform, originally organized by Romania, will be held in Chisinau with delegations from 65 countries attending. The main theme of the meeting with be supporting Moldova’s EU integration but this will be sub-divided into working groups on justice reform, energy security, economic growth, etc. Past meetings of the Moldova Support Platform have resulted in allocations of 1.4 billion euros in support of Moldova. The meeting is ongoing and we’ll have updates on the outcome next week.
Igor Dodon launches a fresh round of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and misinformation. The former president claimed this week that he was summoned for questioning by the police for bigoted statements he made that resulted in a complaint by the LGBTQ+ rights group Genderdoc-M. For their part Genderdoc-M noted that they hadn’t made any complaints against him this year but noted that they had multiple cases open against Dodon in various courts for "homophobic statements." Police stated that Dodon had come to the station “for unclear reasons” and noted that he had been summoned some time ago to respond to complaints but had not gone citing various excuses. His choice to go to the police right as the campaign starts coincided with various other statements he made accusing PAS of political persecution, including in these complaints, and saying that following the election the EU will impose quotas for gay persons at all levels of government. Government spokesman Daniel Voda responded saying:
"His lies are not what they used to be. It's good that he didn't say that there would be employment quotas for Syrians (remember that lie?!), aliens, cats, or maybe even cookies. Don't deceive people!"2
Parliament is curtailing its schedule during the elections. Speaker of Parliament Igor Grosu announced that only critical items would be included on the agenda before the October 20th election and that he would free up the schedule for parliamentarians to go campaign. The Speaker stated that this is not about the presidential election but about the referendum.
Moldova has refused permits for charter flights for Rosh Hashanah pilgrims. Each year tens of thousands of Hasidic Jewish pilgrims visit the grave of Rabbi Nachman in the Ukrainian town of Uman for Rosh Hashanah (October 2). Since the onset of COVID3, and later the Russian Invasion, this has resulted in a massive strain on Moldova’s infrastructure with 30,000 pilgrims flying into the Chisinau airport and then moving to Ukraine by bus last year alone. Moldova has had a complex negotiation with Israel on this process4 with Israel agreeing in August to pay Moldova $191,000 to cover increased security and dedicated travel routes for the pilgrims. The Moldovan government has said that Israel has not made this promised payment and no money from promised payments for last year’s pilgrimage has arrived - either from tour operators or from the Israeli government. This resulted in Moldova revoking landing permits for planes which are now likely to re-route through Poland or Romania. Ukraine has also told the pilgrims not to come this year saying that they do not have any way to guarantee the safety of such a massive gathering in the small city of Uman which does not have bomb shelters for so many people. If past is prologue, they will not listen.
Russia has appointed a new ambassador to Moldova. Incoming ambassador Oleg Ozerov began his career as a Soviet diplomat in 1981 and has specialized in North Africa and the Middle East. He speaks English, French and Arabic and has had not worked in Europe except a stint in France in 1997-2001. Minister of Foreign Affairs Mihai Popsoi announced that they had accepted Ozerov after vetting him saying:
"We didn't expect that they would send us a person who speaks Romanian, did we? During the checks by the competent institutions, we did not find any statements by the new ambassador that would concern Moldova,"
Security and Shor Related News
Here’s a roundup of the top security and Shor news of the week:
A Moldovan soldier attached to the Joint Control Commission peacekeepers has died in the Security Zone. The Security Zone between Moldova and Transnistria is patrolled by a joint peacekeeping force between the parties. No details were given initially except that he was “fatally wounded by his service weapon” but subsequent statements from Bashkan Gutsul imply that it was suicide. The soldier was from Gagauzia and the Bashkan promised support for his family.
The Council for the Promotion of Investment Projects of National Importance5 is requesting additional financial data from the director of Gagauzia Radio Television (GRT). An investigation showed that the director recently received 124,000 lei in a P2P transfer that he has not explained. GRT is a regional station with national broadcast rights that allegedly came under the control of Ilan Shor when Bashkan Gutsul was elected. Additional members of the station’s management and oversight were also sent requests for financial information.
The United States has announced sanctions against the Moscow based ANO Eurasia organization for links to Shor. They claim that Eurasia masqueaded as a humanitarian aid organization but “…was a vote-buying campaign aimed at illegally supporting pro-Kremlin candidates and undermining democracy in Moldova.” The US has also sanctioned Russia Today (RT) citing election interference in multiple countries including the US and Moldova.
Ilan Shor has launched a new 24/7 online news network called M24. The network, hosts and staff are all based in Russia but are made up of Moldovans. It broadcasts stories and programs meant to support Shor candidates and oppose and denigrate the EU.
The court has granted Marina Tauber permission to travel to Russia, disrupting her trial and against the appeals of prosecutors. Tauber plans to attend the Eurasian Women's Forum in St. Petersburg and has repeatedly proven that criminal trials related to her corruptly managing a political party cannot get in the way of continued political activities.
Economic News
Moldova got mixed news on inflation numbers this week with overall inflation in august coming in at 5.1% - the highest in 10 months. The overall number is still within the National Bank’s target range of 5% ±1.5%. The numbers break down into food inflation of 6%, non-food products 5.8% and services 2.4%.
The worst numbers when compared to a year ago were vegetables (+37%), eggs (+30%) and fruit (+17%). Vegetable oil and sugar are down by 9.8% and 5% respectively.
The good news is that gasoline has fallen to the lowest prince since 2022 and fuel prices overall are down by 2.7%. Utilities are down overall by 12.1% with central heating down by 43% and natural gas down by 27.4%.
The National Bank predicts inflation to continue to rise this year but to stay under the target max of 6.5%. Experts note that food prices are partially driven by the summer drought conditions but also represent a correction since there was food deflation earlier in the summer.
Farmers continue to sound the alarm about deteriorating conditions and poor expected harvests. Minister of Agriculture Vladimir Bolea proposed that the government declare a State of Emergency in the agriculture sector and promised 100 million lei in payments to farmers who are most affected. It is not clear what the State of Emergency concept would entail and it appears that the Minister is looking to Romania for inspiration as their government recently passed a set of emergency measures for farmers.
Minister Bolea also called on the EU to create a Development and Solidarity Fund for Moldovan agriculture in a video he recorded in Brussels saying:
"In 2024, drought, heat, hail and flooding have reached horrific proportions, threatening not only harvests but also the very viability of the agricultural sector - key to our economy and food security. Our farmers, many of whom are small producers, are at their limit,"
The Minister has continued to meet with farmers against the backdrop of renewed calls for protests but has so far failed to meet their demands and expectations.
I can’t load CNN or literally any other webpage in Moldova without seeing Morari’s ads. She’s blanketing the google advertising space as well as social media. A few thousand dollars in spending is almost certainly an understatement as Platon was spending 10s of thousands of dollars promoting her before she announced for the campaign.
In the last election various pro-Russian groups claimed that Maia Sandu had a secret plan to bring 30,000 Syrians to the country. They can’t seem to decide if she’s an Islamist or a supporter of unfettered gay rights.
During COVID, border closures, especially for unvaccinated persons, meant that most pilgrims could not fly to Ukraine directly. Moldova was clear that no pilgrims could come to Moldova and transit to Ukraine by bus because the Ukrainian border would be closed to them. They would also not be allowed to enter Moldova if they didn’t have vaccine certificates. Thousands of pilgrims bought flights to other destinations that transited Chisinau and then tried to escape the airport with the intention of finding a way to illegally cross into Ukraine. This created a major strain for Moldova’s police and security services.
Moldova has been negotiating with Israel for some time over Israel’s introduction of a pre-clearance travel program. Moldova and Israel have a visa free travel agreement but the new pre-clearance system would require Moldovans to register online in advance of travel and pay a fee - essentially violating the idea of visa free travel. Moldova has threatened to revoke Israel’s visa free status in the past while hinting at what a mess it would be for the pilgrims. As with past inquiries about the pilgrims, and notable law enforcement issues re Ilan Shor, Israel has ignored Moldova.
This is the body that was tasked at the beginning of the year with overseeing foreign ownership of media. They have the power to revoke licenses or ban channels and media outlets owned by those connected to enemies of the nation or criminal enterprises. The Council for the Promotion of Investment Projects of National Importance badly needs an acronym and is a standout in a country that loves them.