Weekly Roundup
August 14 - August 20
Welcome back to Moldova Matters! Subscribe to get our Weekly Roundup and other content sent right to your email! 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!
The Fall of Kabul
Any news wrapup of the week has to at least touch on what has become the number one story in the world, the fall of Kabul to the Taliban and the collapse of the Afghan state. While readers of Moldova Matters surely have better sources to read and watch the coverage of the increasingly dire situation in Afghanistan, it’s worth noting how big of a story this is in Moldova as well. Coverage in all the major news outlets has focused on the events unfolding in central asia while conversations on social media try and parse out just what happened and what it all means. Many here reference the fall of Communist Afghanistan, more than 3 years after the Soviet Union withdrew, and the very unflattering comparison that makes to the US and Nato efforts of the last 20 years. More concretely, there are 6 Moldovan citizens currently sheltering at the airport in Kabul waiting for evacuation. They are the crew of an aircraft owned by a private company that was contracted to the UN’s World Food Program and supporting it’s work in Afghanistan. Currently all the Moldovans are safe and housed with the UN staff at the airport. The Ministry of Foriegn Affairs is working to ensure their safe evacuation and has announced that all Moldovan citizens would be flown out on evacuation flights run by the Romanian Air Force. Romania already has flights working to evacuate their citizens and support the evacuation of EU and American citizens as well. Asked in a press conference if Moldova would be prepared to receive refugees from Afghanistan, Prime Minister Gavrilita said that there are no plans to do so at this time, and that the Government’s sole focus is on the safety of the 6 Moldovans still in Kabul.
Speaking personally, I was in the 8th grade when the Twin Towers went down on 9/11. Growing up in the DC suburbs the attack on the Pentagon was much closer to home as I had many friends with parents working there. The situation in Afghanistan is heartbreaking and the coverage this week has been a story of non stop horror and revulsion at how this could have gone so badly so quickly. History will have much to say about the decisions that were made, and it is far out of the scope of this newsletter to debate or try and make sense of what is going on. But whatever your thoughts, it is incredibly clear that a huge tragedy is unfolding with long reaching implications for the world.
Justice Reform is Proceeding Rapidly
This week, the Government and Parliament moved decisively to organize evaluations for the Prosecutor General and pave the way for his dismissal and replacement. Many say too decisively, as NGOs and journalists raised the alarm about how quickly and transparently these reforms were taking place. Particularly, an open letter by a group of anti-corruption and transparency related NGOs called for open public consultations on the reform as required by law. This created a major backlash on social media with PAS supporters attacking the NGOs and claiming that they are working for the thieves in order to protect corruption schemes. PAS members of parliament including MP Dumitru Alaiba and Radu Marin spoke to their supporters and engaged them on social media trying to tamp down the anger and outrage. Their message was simple - accountability is good. These NGOs and journalists raised the alarm and held the government accountable to its own rules. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Subsequently parliament scheduled public consultations on the draft laws regarding the Prosecutor General and the appointment of the head of the National Anti Corruption Center.
Some Heated Public Consultations
The public consultations on the laws regarding the Prosecutor General turned into a public debate on justice reform. Recall, the new draft law provides for a mechanism by which the Prosecutor General can be evaluated on a yearly basis and recalled if they are not doing their job or are found to be aiding criminal groups. In public consultations there was a sort of 3 way argument with the Minister of Justice presenting and defending the law along with various PAS MPs, representatives of the prosecutors attacking the law, and NGOs and civil society groups generally throwing shade all around. Representatives of the council of prosecutors were outraged at the yearly frequency of evaluation. Furthermore, they raise the issue of separation of powers suggesting that this law directly subordinates the Prosecutor General to parliament and therefore politicizes the office. In response, PAS deputies noted that the public has zero trust in the prosecutor’s office. Nothing has been done on the theft of the billion. Nothing was done when Plahotniuc captured the state. Nothing was done when Plahotnuic attempted to seize power by force in 2019. No arrest warrants. In many cases no suspects. Even more often there are no cases at all.
Nothing is ever done. Meanwhile, the NGOs represented at the meeting also attacked the prosecutors for doing almost nothing while simultaneously noting the rushed and untransparent mechanism of this and other laws being considered by PAS. At the conclusion of the meeting the Minister of Justice thanked everyone for their input and accepted some suggestions from the prosecutors to more clearly define the evaluation process in the law.
Next up, were public consultations on the appointment of a new director of the National Anti Corruption Center. Currently, the director is appointed in an open “competition” whereby candidates submit applications are selected by a special panel on the basis of a rubric of qualifications. The new law allows 20 MPs to appoint a director and parliament as a whole to vote on the appointment - no public competition. Transparency International Moldova said in public consultations that this is absolutely unacceptable and it violates the separation of powers by subordinating more of the justice system to parliament. Olesya Stimate, MP and head of the Legal committee said: “if we lived in a theoretical world, she would 100% or even 200% support this proposal [from Transparency International]”. But in the real world, Moldova has many laws that stress transparency and fairness in appointments and they simply do not work. She said that in our world, no one is fighting corruption at all. Further, when you evaluate candidates simply based on a points system and their resume you have someone that looks great on paper… only to find they are controlled by oligarchs or thieves later. Transparency and other NGOs continued to object noting that every new government starts by appointing their own person head of the National Anti Corruption Center and that this is a very bad thing. Left unspoken was the fact that if everyone does it the argument that PAS is setting a bad precedent falls apart rather quickly.
During all of this process the Shor party helpfully chimed in by proposing legislation that all prosecutors should be elected directly by the people. They also noted their desire to abolish daylight savings time in the same meeting.
The Prosecutor General Hangs on for Dear Life
Meanwhile, Prosecutor General Stoianoglo has been fighting tooth and nail to keep his job. Presumably, so he can investigate the theft of the billion for another 7 years. Some weeks back this took the form of accusing President Sandu and PAS of racism because he is Gagauz. No one knew he was Gagauz so this didn’t carry too much weight in society and turned into some memes. Now his office is working very hard to invite European intervention in the process by advocating that the laws should be vetted with the Venice Commission (the EU’s highest constitutional law body) and making accusations about the politicisation of justice. The Prosecutor General held a press conference this week accusing President Sandu of demanding the arrests of Mr. Dodon and Mr. Voronin at the last meeting of the Security Council. He suggested that attempts to fire him were really about arresting political rivals. President Sandu quickly responded suggesting that Stoianoglo read the minutes of the meeting since he “did not consider it necessary to attend.” She noted that the meeting was focused on the failure of Mr. Stoianoglo to arrest major criminals and his actions that have allowed many of them to flee the country in the past months. President Sandu said that the Prosecutor General was an “instrument and accomplice of these corrupt thieves.”
Mr. Stoianoglo continued his trend of not showing up for important meetings when he refused to attend a meeting of Parliament discussing the theft of the billion on friday. The Prosecutor General said that the law does not compel him to attend and therefore he won’t.
A Quick Roundup of Other Political Stories in the News
Prime Minister Gavrilita explains why she didn’t declare her homesaying that she lives with her parents because it is very important that her children grow up around their grandparents. Her parents built their house 20 years ago so it is clearly their house - not a house owned by Gavrilita but held in their name. Quote "I didn't write it in my parent's name - it is theirs."
There was an odd protest at the Presidency building this week when a man drove his minibus onto the property and parked it on the lawn. He said he wanted to speak to someone about the fact that he can’t manage to connect his house to the village water supply. He was detained and a case of “hooliganism” was opened by the police.
President Sandu flew to Vienna this week on a personal trip. This made the news because she flew economy and waited in line with everyone else in the airport even refusing special consideration when it was offered. Moldovans took selfies with their president and much conversation on social media focused on just how rare, even unprecedented, these actions are for a Moldovan head of state. It was said that Plahotnuic never traveled without his huge escort of body guards which some said numbered 600+.
Mr. Usati - how can we miss you if you won’t go away? The mayor of Balti continues to drag his feet on his promise to resign. First, he went on a long vacation last month. Now he has announced he will hold a rally at the mayor's office on September 2nd in order to “explain all the work he did for the city and look the people in the eye.” In the meantime the city has an acting mayor and Usati said he plans to resign officially after the Sept 2nd meeting. People continue to speculate that the mayor plans somehow to create a situation where he reluctantly agrees to stay in office after the people beg him to. For anyone out there grump at how Andrew Cuomo gave himself 14 days to resign… Mr. Usati is now 40 days into his promise and still hanging on.
COVID-19 Updates
The COVID outlook in Moldova continues to worsen with a 7 day average of 5.7 deaths and 281 new cases per day. Unfortunately, this does not tell the whole story as both cases and deaths have jumped up significantly this week causing the 7 day afterage to lag. On Thursday, there were over 400 new cases and 10 deaths. Of the new cases, the vast majority are among the unvaccinated (92%) while there are noted breakthrough infections, especially for people with only 1 shot (5% of new cases) though these cases are all mild so far. The mayor of Chisinau has convened a meeting of the city’s Extraordinary Public Health committee noting that only around 30% of the city is fully vaccinated at this time. He noted the fact that more and more hospital beds are in use and following the meeting Holy Trinity Municipal Hospital was put back into “front line” status with 200 beds and 18 ICU facilities coming back to the fight against the pandemic. The mayor explained that the city is prepared to gradually bring more hospitals into front line status as conditions continue to worsen.
The government has put the whole country in a “code orange” state with restaurants and event spaces restricted to 50% capacity and mask requirements maintained for indoor spaces and crowded outdoor spaces. New border entry requirements will include an abolition of the “red, green and yellow” country list and requiring all border crossers regardless of origin to present a vaccine certificate or negative test. Furthermore, the government is developing an app that people will be required to install on their phones if they are in self quarantine. This app will assure their compliance via location tracking but details are scant so far and the app is not expected to be ready before October. The Prime Minister stated this week that they are not actively planning for new lockdowns and that unlike in past waves, where tools were limited, Moldova has adequate vaccine supply now. She urged all citizens to get vaccinated to stop this new wave.
Other Health News - Don’t Swim in the Chisinau Lakes
Health officials are performing their yearly task of begging residents not to swim in any of the capital’s lakes. They note that the lakes have 5000x more bacteria than is safe for humans and there is a high risk of meningitis or hepatitis to swimmers. They note that even being on the sand at the beach is dangerous. So please don’t swim in the lakes!
Crime and Corruption Update
This week Moldovan police detained an Israeli-Russian citizen at the airport who runs a criminal syndicate engaged in contract killings, drug and arms trafficking and blackmail. Cooperation with the Israeli authorities tipped the Moldvoan police to his arrival in the country and the man was put on a flight back to Israel and declared “undesirable” in Moldova with his entry restricted for 5 years. It is not clear from reporting whether he was simply deported or extradited to face charges elsewhere.
Sappers from the Ministry of Defense safely destroyed (blew up) around 25 WW2 era grenades that a farmer discovered in his field. The police noted that it is critical that citizens immediately call the authorities if they discover ordinance so that it can be safely destroyed. I (the author) have myself found parts of mortar shells while digging in my yard in the past. This serves to remind just how much fighting actually went on in Moldova both in WW2 and in the Transnestrian conflict.
A senior police investigator in the Chisinau central district was detained for corruption this week on the charges of extorting a 400 euro bribe from a minor in exchange for not charging him with theft. The same officer was also charged for taking an 8390 bribe from another minor for the same purpose.
Schemes Unraveling?
An interesting scheme has come to light this week regarding the airport’s exclusive contract with a taxi company. Anyone who has flown in or out of Moldova will note just how expensive it is to get a taxi from the airport compared to getting one to the airport. The taxi company, which charges 50% more than market rates, is owned by the 27 year old son of the director of the customs service. He acquired the company when it’s previous contract was about to expire. The former owner says that he was offered a deal - sell your company or you will lose the concession and be bankrupted. He sold it to the official’s son and the contract was then renewed. Currently this is only being reported in the press so we’ll have to see what the government does investigating the story. In any case it serves as a reminder that schemes, large and small, power the unexplained wealth of so many officials in Moldova.
Ending on a High Note!
After 9 days of fighting wildfires in Greece, Moldova’s expeditionary fire brigade returned home this week. During their time there they worked with Romanian colleagues in a joint fire brigade extinguishing fires and rescuing animals. When they left, they were applauded by Greek citizens for a job well done. While Moldova may be a small country, it can still be a good neighbor and good global citizen. The hard work of this fire brigade shows just how well Moldovans can do if called to assist.
And before you go - please check your inbox for a survey that we sent to all Moldova Matters readers! It asks about what you like and don’t like about the newsletter as well as your preferences for new content in the future. Your feedback is super important so please take 5 minutes to fill it out!
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!