Weekly Roundup
October 2 - October 9
Welcome back to Moldova Matters! In this weekly roundup we will check in with the top stories of the week in Politics and Economics. Subscribe to Moldova Matters 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!
This week, the unfolding events around the Prosecutor General have driven nearly the whole news cycle. In order to give it the treatment it deserves we will move more quickly through other news and catch up a bit on anything we missed next week.
The Saga of the Prosecutor General Continues
There is pretty much only one major story in Moldova and it follows the dramatic events surrounding the ousting and arrest of Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo. In order to appreciate these events let’s review a few key bits of context. Firstly, after Maia Sandu, Igor Dodon and their respective PAS and Socialist parties ousted Plahotniuc from power in June 2019 they formed a shaky coalition government together. This government was headed by Maia Sandu as Prime Minister but only lasted 6 months. The breaking point came when Sandu attempted to force through a nominee for Prosecutor General who would clean up corruption in Moldova. This caused Mr. Dodon and the Socialists to issue a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, collapse the coalition government, and form a new block with the Shor Party and remnants of Plahotnuic’s Democratic Party. This new Socialist led coalition nominated Alexandr Stoianoglo to the position of Prosecutor General. Stoianoglo then sparred many times with the head of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office Viorel Morari who was a Plahotnuic era appointee over the next few years eventually leading to Morari’s ouster. Ever since the election it has been a major goal of the new PAS Government to remove and replace the Prosecutor General citing his complete failure to bring any charges in the Theft of the Billion and his more recent dropping of charges against Platon and allowing him to flee the country right after the election.
Ok, so this week’s story begins Monday when Stoianoglo held a press conference accusing a whole raft of actors of participating in a broad conspiracy to oust him. He claimed that his longtime nemesis Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office Viorel Morari was scheming with the PAS Party, Civil Society groups including a raft of NGOs and think tanks, and the EU and US Ambassadors in order to remove him. Importantly, he showed intercepted text messages between Viorel Morari and the EU Ambassador that he claimed represented collusion of some kind. Viorel Morari was, at the time of messaging, the anti-corruption prosecutor and the EU Ambassador was communicating in an official capacity. In his press conference he said "We have all witnessed a conspiracy at the highest level, using disinformation and manipulation tactics, through NGOs, media, external partners and politicians […] to support these attacks." The General Prosecutor said that the text messages were intercepted during some as yet unannounced investigation that he claims is being coordinated by Europol but he declined to issue specific information. He did note that the text messages in question have nothing to do with this investigation.
The EU Categorically rejected the idea of internal interference or “conspiracy.” Meanwhile, the Minister of Justice said that these actions crossed a “red line” as Stoianoglo was releasing private and secret information from investigations for his personal interest. We should note that Stoianoglo’s own statement’s back this up as he was clear he was not releasing these wiretaps / intercepts in the context of any investigation at all. The Minister of Justice said that this was a settling of oligarchic scores between Stoianoglo (Dodon’s man) and Viorel Morari (Plahotnuic’s) and that the actions risked upsetting foriegn relations.
Criminal Accusations Begin
Immediately following this press conference, PAS Member of Parliament Lilian Karp lodged a criminal complaint with the Supreme Council of Prosecutors, alleging crimes by the Prosecutor General. In it he lays out multiple alleged crimes including one where, Stoianoglo, while acting as a Member of Parliament in 2012, helped write a law that was later used for money laundering on a massive scale with the Russian Laundromat. Karp alleged that Stoianoglo was also a beneficiary of some of this laundered money for his part.
Additionally, Karp alleged that Stoianoglo let Platon out of prison and eventually allowed him to flee the country in exchange for bribes. Karp presented reporting from Ukrainian investigative journalists detailing how Stoianoglo’s wife became the owner of 2 offshore companies previously owned by Platon that were worth $5.5 million dollars. However, much of this Ukrainian reporting came from a single source - Viorel Morari, who had just been ousted as anti-corruption prosecutor by Stoianoglo.
Confused Yet?
Well, the Supreme Council of Prosecutors sure was. It took them all day and vote after vote on resolution after resolution to decide what to do with this complaint. The Minister of Justice Litvinenco was strongly in favor of opening a criminal investigation. This action would also trigger the automatic removal of the General Prosecutor under the new laws passed by PAS this past month. Opposing, or less willing to take this step, were various members concerned about procedural questions and minutia. Stoianoglo himself made an uninvited appearance at the council’s meeting which resulted in lots of raised voices and Stoianoglo eventually leaving and saying he was sorry.
By the end of the meeting the Supreme Council of Prosecutors determined to accept the criminal complaint and appoint a prosecutor to check into it. Critically, this was not an audit on his work but a criminal complaint which would trigger his suspension.
Suspension and Arrest
In order to investigate these allegations, Prosecutor Victor Fortune was appointed by the Council. Things then started to happen very very fast. Fortune opened a criminal case which led to the Minister of Justice to immediately note that the General Prosecutor and all his deputies must be removed from office. Immediately SIS agents went to the Prosecutor’s office and removed him from the building, after which they conducted searches.
Source privesc eu
We later found that within 3 hours of being tasked with investigating Fortune brought the indictment and sent orders for Stoianoglo’s arrest. After this SIS searched his home and generally began gathering evidence. Stoyanaglo was brought to court to face the Prosecutor’s request for a 30 day arrest while investigations are carried out. The Court granted the Prosecutor’s request but ruled it would be house arrest and sent Stoianoglo home.
Political Fallout
The 5 day journey of Mr. Stoyanaglo from a press conference alleging international conspiracy to house arrest has become a lightning rod in Moldovan politics. President Sandu publicly called for Prosecutor Fortune to be transparent to the maximum with society about the charges and decision making process around this arrest. Meanwhile, the President nominated as acting General Prosecutor Dumitru Robu. Robu was appointed acting General Prosecutor by Prime Minister Maia Sandu in 2019 and before the collapse of the Government removed him, he had deprived 4 members of parliament of their immunity and was proceeding with criminal cases against them. 3 were from the Shor faction and one from Plahotnuic’s Democrats. All these decisions were reversed immediately after Stoyaglano was appointed and the cases closed.
While PAS has gotten a prosecutor it believes will go after corruption, at least for now, the Socialists are incensed. Igor Dodon said that this is a “fatal political mistake” and was rushed for political reasons. The Communists and Socialists boycotted parliamentary meetings October 7th in protest and claimed that these actions amounted to the “establishment of dictatorship.” These sentiments were echoed by the Bashkhan of Gagauzia and former Mayor of Balti Renato Usati who both used the word dictatorship to describe the actions.
Mr. Dodon has called for protests on Sunday October 10th noting that while the removal of Stoianoglo is the current issue their demands at the protest will be for the resignation of the president and early elections. He said that the protests would be peaceful but noted that if “something more was needed” they had experience in that as well. Addressing a question, Mr. Dodon flatly denied rumors that he was going to imminently flee the country and said that he planned to stay and fight in the opposition.
So what does all this mean?
Good question. On one hand, the government managed to remove and replace the Prosecutor General which has been a major goal since their taking office. The hope is that this will lead to a prosecutor’s office that brings criminal cases rather than buries them. On the other hand, the fact that this happened so quickly and so unexpectedly will come with serious political costs. At a minimum it’s political fodder for Mr. Dodon and the Socialists. Talk of state capture and “dictatorship” are not likely to find much hold in the public as this is essentially a personnel change. The idea of a new American President or European Government appointing a new Attorney General is not exactly earth shattering. But the manner of events indicates that this was not the result of a plan so much as a rapidly unfolding series of improvisations. Yes, the law was followed. Yes, the courts will have their say. But the strange manner of these events is likely to cast a long shadow.
Expect lots more updates on this front in the coming weeks.
Other Political News
This week the Moldovan Parliament officially ratified the Istanbul Convention in the first reading. The Istanbul Convention is from the Council of Europe on “preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.” This was done with only PAS votes and drew strong objections from the Socialists. Russia and (ironically given the “Istanbul” signing location) Turkey have both withdrawn from the convention in recent years citing an “attack on traditional family values.” Russia drove home the point by decriminalizing domestic violence as well. The Socialists and Communists walked out of parliament in protest of the vote.
The Orthodox Church in Moldova also let its opposition be known citing the idea that the convention challenges “customs and traditions” based in the inferiority of one sex to the other. The Church believes that this is an “attack on history” and therefore dangerous.
COVID-19 Update
The COVID situation in Moldova continues to deteriorate with 1228 new cases per day and 25 deaths in the current 7 day running average. The government says that the situation is “becoming alarming” as more and more hospitals are moved onto the front line and have to add beds to accommodate the new cases.
In a new policy, a moratorium on evictions is established during the cold months provided the late rent does not exceed 15 average monthly salaries (around 130,000 MDL). This is in place to keep people in their homes and able to socially distance during the rise in cases and ongoing health crisis.
Crime and Corruption
The release of the Pandora Papers by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists ICIJ and over 100 collaborating news organizations worldwide has brought new revelations into the wealth of Moldovan Oligarchs. We will dive into more stories in a future Weekly Roundup but the first one to be reported by ICIJ partner RISE Moldova was about Plahotniuc. It was reported that Mr. Plahotniuc created a trust in New Zealand in 2011 where he deposited around 180 million dollars. This trust was set up in his name and with his ex-wife and children as beneficiaries and was flagged multiple times by the New Zealand authorities as potential money laundering without anything ever being done about it. Politician Adrian Candu was set up as the trust’s “Protector” showing that other members of Plahotnuic’s inner circle and political party clearly knew quite a lot about his internal financial activities.
After the establishment of the trust in 2011 it soon became owner of a spider web of shell companies from Cyprus to the Netherlands with these intermediary companies then becoming owners of dozens of Moldovan companies. These holdings in Media, hotels, property and even an airline show how Plahotnuic used international financial secrecy tools to manage a sprawling business empire in Moldova anonymously. In 2017, following new financial secrecy rules in New Zealand following the publishing of the Panama Papers the trust was migrated to Cyprus where it remains.
RISE continues to report on stories exposed in the Pandora Papers and we can expect more revelations of the hidden financial and property holdings of Moldovan oligarchs in the coming weeks.
Ending on a High Note!
Moldovan Niku Stirbets was listed in Forbes Romania’s 30 under 30 list. Stirbets is the founder of an eco hotel in Moldova and a major proponent of rural tourism as both an economic opportunity for Moldova generally, and as a way to build up Moldova’s struggling villages specifically. His investment began as a traditional museum and developed into ecological housing, a rustic restaurant and a small family winery offering comprehensive travel packages for foriegn and local tourists. Over the years he has attracted 10,000 tourists from countries such as Austria, Germany and the Netherlands and created more than 10 jobs in his village. Rural tourism is a very young sector of the Moldovan economy but a promising one fusing traditional villages, beautiful landscapes and a wine culture to make a true “off the beaten path” travel adventure. Congrats to Niku Stirbets!
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!