Weekly Roundup: Independence Day and Electoral Updates

August 30, 2024

Author’s Note: Over the last few months I’ve found that even with a summer slowdown it’s been very hard to keep up with all the relevant stories while also providing relevant context. Some of you have noticed that I’ve started using footnotes a lot more to add context for those who are interested while not clogging up the main text too much (which is already too long). I know most of you read these by email and that footnotes might not be the most convienent there. If you want to be able to easily jump back and forth between footnotes and the text (and get some other fun features) you can always read on the website or on the Substack app.

Moldova Celebrates 33 Years of Independence

On Tuesday August 27th Moldova celebrated 33 years since the country declared independence from the Soviet Union. The day was marked by a series of festive events culminating in a major concert that drew 39,000 people to the National Assembly Square in Chisinau.

A day prior, on August 26th, President Sandu announced that she had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and would not be able to take part in public events surrounding the holiday. The President stated that she felt well and had no symptoms other than “a little fatigue.” In place of a public address, she put out a video message to the nation stating (in part):

“Dear Moldovans, wherever you are, I wish you to speak with pride about Moldova and its people. To speak about our athletes, artists, students, sarmale or placinte. About the porch of your parents’ house and the cherries that are the best in the world. Talk about the humanity of Moldovans, about folk dances and the warmth with which our hills and forests greet us. Let’s look around and discover all the good that we have thanks to Moldova and our Moldovans. Let’s be proud of Moldova and look at it kindly. Then we will make it even more beautiful, ...

We are united by freedom. We can be who we want to be. Dear Moldovans, today I wish you only one thing - to believe in Moldova, to believe in our country. Happy birthday, Moldova!"

The Presidency also put out a produced video showing a montage of Moldovans, including recent Olympic Silver Medalist Anastasia Nichita, facing and choosing to overcome adversity. The video’s patriotic message was “forward” summed up by this line:

"Every Decision either holds us back, or moves us forward. We are what we choose day by day"

You can watch the whole video with English subtitles on twitter here.

Screenshot from the Presidency’s Independence Day Video

On the occasion of Independence Day, the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia all visited Moldova and met with Prime Minister Recean as well as other government leaders. They took the occasion to sign a joint letter of support for Moldova’s EU accession process.

Elections Updates

This week saw a flurry of updates around candidates for the October 20th presidential elections. According to the Central Election Commission’s (CEC) timeline the election season officially began on August 1st. Starting August 20th candidates could register initiative groups¹, consisting either of the political party supporting them or a group of individuals, which would support their campaigns. These initiative groups have the power to raise money and conduct the actual campaign which begins on September 20th. The deadline for registering a candidate’s initiative group is August 31st. Without such a group there is no campaign and therefore no candidate.

Registration of parties and initiative groups to participate in the referendum has a different deadline and will continue until September 20th.

As you will see below, this process has gotten messy for some candidates. Given that there are continuing maneuvers (and appeals) we will publish a full list of candidates who will participate in the election next week. For now, here are the latest updates:

• President Sandu was nominated by that PAS Party to run for president on August 22nd. The nomination ceremony took place outdoors at digital park and included many speakers from around the country including mayors and an entrepreneur from Gagauzia who spoke in Gagauz and Russian. The campaign launched with the slogan “Pentru Moldova²” (“For Moldova,” or “Maia Sandu for Moldova”) and the campaign colors blue and white.³ The President registered with the CEC the same day and PAS is now working to collect signatures to assure her ballot access.

• Vlad Filat withdrew from the presidential race. The former Prime Minister alluded to being barred from the race due to his past criminal convictions, but pivoted to attacking the current government without fully explaining himself.⁴ Filat announced that his PLDM party would still support a “Yes” vote in the referendum.

• The CEC refused to register the initiative group of candidate Lyudmila Korsun because she does not speak Romanian. Korsun, who has live in Russia for the past 20 years and chairs the "Federal National-Cultural Autonomy of Moldovans of Russia" claimed through representatives that she had been taking classes for the last 20 days and was “showing significant progress.” CEC representatives found that she could not respond to basic questions in Romanian and refused to register her based on current legislation.

• The Pobeda (Victory) block appealed last week’s CEC decision (Weekly Roundup) not to register the block due to violations. The choice of the CEC not to register the block either as an initiative group for the presidential elections, or for the referendum was upheld by the Court of Appeals. The appeal was then rejected by the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ). This means that the Pobeda (Victory) block remains an unregistered political group and may not take part in the elections.

• Communist Party Leader Vladimir Voronin announced that his party would support Vasile Tarlev in the presidential elections. We previously wrote about how Voronin was rumored to be lining up behind Tarlev, who is broadly considered to be a Shor affiliated candidate. Voronin announced that he had previously met with Socialist candidate Stoianoglo and declared he had “no chance.” Voronin has recently called Igor Dodon a “puppet” of Maia Sandu and appears to be pulling the Communists away from their Socialist allies and into a Shor-adjacent orbit.

• The CEC cancels the registration of Vasile Tarlev. The commission noted that while Tarlev registered as an independent he did not resign as the leader of the “Future of Moldova” party and then began using the personnel and administrative resources of that party to support his candidacy.⁵ This means that Tarlev has been barred from running as an independent but that he may still re-register as a candidate under the Future of Moldova party. It is unclear if he will try and re-register.

• The CEC unanimously voted to restrict (sanction) the Renaissance party. While reviewing the party’s financial reports the CEC claims that there is clear evidence of greater expenses than income. They also note that the party reported no expenses at all for office space, event organization, travel (for trips to Bulgaria and Russia that were publicly reported) and more. The CEC said that Renaissance party leaders and accountants largely failed to show up to meetings and then did not followup on requests for clarification of financial information. According to electoral law parties that are “restricted” are prohibited from participating in almost all political activity during the period of their restriction. In this case, until well after the October elections. The Ministry of Justice must now review the CEC request and make a decision on restrictions.

• The CEC voted 6 against with 3 abstentions, not to register the initiative group of Vasile Bolea. Bolea was announced as the presidential candidate of the Pobeda (Victory) block and was considered Shor’s lead public candidate in the race. When the CEC voted not to register Pobeda and then restricted Bolea’s party, Renaissance, he attempted to register as an independent. The CEC refused to recognize him as an independent citing continuing online advertising after his registration where he was claiming to be the candidate of the Pobeda block.

With the August 31st deadline coming up tomorrow there is still some time for additional candidate news to break. At the moment, it appears like all the major Shor-affiliated candidates have been blocked from the ballot. Natalia Morari, Irina Vlah, Renato Usatii, Alexandr Stoianoglo as well as various minor candidates have all secured ballot access. We’ll write an article looking at who all the final candidates are next week.

Other Political and Election News

Here’s a roundup of the other important political / election news of the week:

• New Watchdog poll results on the referendum were released. The poll, which was conducted between August 20 - 22, shows 52.2% support for “Yes,” 29.6% support for “No,” 6.6% who intend to not vote or boycott and 11% undecided. Please keep in mind - these polls do not include the diaspora who lean heavily towards the EU and account for approximately 15% of the electorate.

• Disgraced journalist and presidential candidate Natalia Morari has accused the National Anti-Corruption Center (CNA) of political harassment. She made a video showing a letter she got from the CNA requesting 2 years worth of records from her media company “Media Sapiens” for an ongoing investigation. Morari claims that “The NAC has access to all information related to the activities of all companies in Moldova” meaning that the request for producing all this information was itself “abuses and illegal attacks.”⁶ Morari blamed the current government and alleged political persecution. Responding to a request for comment from Newsmaker the CNA stated that they had been sent an appeal by the Money Laundering Prevention and Combating Service and were investigating on that basis.

• Watchdog reports that Platon and Shor spent another 136,000 euros on facebook and Google advertising in the last 3 months. According to Watchdog “the main goal of these sponsored campaigns is to sow panic in society, discredit Moldova’s European integration process and whitewash Russia’s image.” The report indicated that Facebook and Google continue to refuse to take serious actions against Russian elements to destabilize the political situation in Moldova.

• Transnistrian “leader” Vadim Krasnoselsky has announced his intention to effectively outlaw the name “Transnistria.” Krasnoselsky says that at the end of the summer recess he will ask the region’s legislature (the Supreme Soviet) to recognize the word as being associated with “Nazism” and “Fascism.” At time of print the Bureau of Reintegration has not commented on Krasnoselsky’s press conference and announcement. To (attempt) to understand what he is saying we need a bit of a language lesson - check out the footnote for more.⁷

Economics and Infrastructure News

Here are the top stories in economics and infrastructure from this week:

• The Romanian government has begun negotiations to buy out the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) stake in the Giurgiulesti International Free Port. The EBRD is currently the sole owner of the company Danube Logistics which has a 99 year lease on the port. The EBRD is said to be negotiating with multiple parties, including Romania, Turkey, the Netherlands and Denmark on the sale of the port concession.

• Minister of Economy Dumitru Alaiba shared initial pictures of the proposed ew logistical center in Ungheni. The creation of a large logistics center is designed to integrate Moldova regionally into major transit corridors and could play a large role in the future reconstruction of Ukraine. USAID is currently assisting with a feasibility study on constructing the center which is set to be completed this year. Following the completion of the study, the Ministry of Economy plans to seek investors in the logistics center next year. Minister Alaiba explained the project saying:

"According to calculations, the new infrastructure will allow servicing about 200 thousand trucks per year, which is equivalent to 4 million tons of goods. We will transform the terminal in Beresti into a regional logistics center, thereby facilitating Moldova's access to international transport corridors and integrating the country into the global transport and logistics network,"

Artists’ rendition of the proposed logistics center, sometimes called a “land port.” Photo Source Dumitu Aliaba facebook

1. An “initiative group” is something like a Campaign Committee in the US system (kinda). Basically it is the named legal entity which is responsible for managing the campaign finances, etc. Candidates can register as running under a political party, in which case the party would be their “initiative group.” If they run as an independent they will typically list some number of people (campaign managers, volunteers, etc) who comprise the new group.

2. Renato Usatii has expressed anger at this choice of slogan since he has been using “For Moldova” on his election materials for some time. PAS representatives responded that he does not have a monopoly on supporting the country.

3. Experts have noted that the choice of blue and white with yellow accents mirrors the colors of the EU. At the same time, it is notable that yellow, the color of the PAS party, has been significantly de-emphasized since the last campaign. Maia Sandu has significantly higher poll ratings than the PAS party and experts believe that the choice of colors is designed to put some distance between the President and the government for this campaign.

4. It is also possible that he did explain more but that no journalists chose to cover it. Filat spent years as the most important politician in Moldova. Now whether or not he runs for president is completely irrelevant. How the mighty fall.

5. To be clear, he was allowed to register an independent initiative group, but then he (allegedly) immediately started utilizing resources from his old party and he failed to resign from it. This led to him being barred from running as an independent.

6. Morari’s allegation here is somewhat complicated. On one hand, she is 100% correct that these government agencies already have access to just about all of her company’s information. Requests to produce multiple years of documents and records will certainly duplicate things already in their possession. On the other hand, this is *really* common in Moldova. State agencies do not like to share information between themselves and prefer to make companies submit the same forms to many different agencies. Furthermore, it is extremely common for companies to have to submit the same documents to the same agency in pursuit of the same process in the same week or month. You will have to jump through hoops to get another official copy of (whatever) only to see them put it in a folder on top of the last *identical* copy that you submitted. Demanding paperwork is a power-play 100% and is rarely sensical. But it is not unique to Morari.

7. Krasnoselsky is doing nothing more than rhetorically escalating a very old argument. According to him the region is called the Приднестрoвская Молдaвская Респyблика, ПМР (Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR)). Translated to English this would roughly mean the “Alongside” /“With” / “Next to”) [the Nistru] Moldovan Republic. In Romanian Trans-nistria means the region / place “Beyond” the Nistru [river]. Both sides have long argued about a name for the region (or “country” if you are PMR) and settled on the diplomatic fudge of “right bank” and “left bank” [of the Nistru river] with Transnistria being the left bank.

The name dispute isn’t new, but now Krasnoselsky is trying to associate the Romanian name for his region with the Nazis. His basis for this is that Romania fought with Germany in World War II. At the core this is a continuation of an old political / linguistic argument. What is new is his assertion that people speaking Romanian talking about Transnistria are Nazis. In this sense he is essentially echoing Russian talking points.