Weekly Roundup: Shor's Candidate Appears
July 27, 2024
Moldova Wonders - Who is Vasile Tarlev?
This week Moldova found out who Ilan Shor’s candidate for president is and people found themselves wondering… who?
Vasile Tarlev was once at the height of Moldovan politics serving as Prime Minister from 2001 - 2008 for the Communist Party. Since then he has had little public profile. He founded the Renaissance Party in 2012 and led them in the 2014 election campaign where they garnered 0% of the vote. He then tried to run for president in 2016 but failed to gather enough signatures for ballot access.
This week Vasile Tarlev announced that he would be running for president as an independent candidate. He officially denies any connection to Ilan Shor but journalist from NewsMaker have reported that his candidacy was decided in Moscow by Shor. It’s also worth noting that Tarlev’s former Renaissance Party is now controlled by Shor and part of the Pobeda (Victory) block.
The Trend of Unknown and Unpopular Candidates Continues
While Tarlev is known to some of the older generation and to political observers, his public profile is very low. Mr. Tarlev only has 800 followers on his official facebook page and has not been relevant in politics or media for years.
Following the Socialist Party’s announcement that they will support Alexandr Stoianoglo, another candidate with relatively little public profile, a trend is emerging. Politicians with the potential to seriously challenge President Sandu such as Mayor Ceban or former President Igor Dodon have stepped aside for relative unknowns.
Political Scientist Angela Kolatski told Newsmaker that she sees a trend forming that she calls the "mercury effect." She described this tactic as a way to both suppress turnout and consolidate later under a single pro-Russian candidate saying:
“They, like mercury, are divided into many balls, but at the right moment they can come together again and support one candidate, [likely in the 2nd round of voting]" …
“If all her [Maia Sandu’s] opponents do not get even 5%, then her voters will decide that there is no point in going to vote, since she will win anyway. And then they will ignore both the elections and the referendum."
Other experts pointed out that Tarlev’s support may be higher with the older generation who remember him as Prime Minister - an age demographic that already disproportionately supports Shor.
Whatever the strategy, it now appears that we know the major players in this fall’s presidential election. Who Shor’s candidate would be was the last remaining unknown.
Other Political News
Here’s a roundup of the other top political stories of the week:
Minister of Finance Petru Rotaru has resigned. The former minister announced that he will be taking the position of the Deputy Head of the National Bank. Prime Minister Recean has said that he will announce a new candidate for the position of Minister of Finance on July 31st. Rotaru had recently made head scratching comments about the departure of the manufacturing companies Fujikura and Coroplast from Moldova in which he stated that this was not really a bad thing since the companies were members of a free economic zone and therefore didn’t pay much in taxes. His comments, which dismissed the loss of thousands of jobs, were typical for a Minister of Finance and there is no indication that they played a roll in this reshuffle.1
Parliament is considering a bill regulating the work of psychologists. Currently there is no regulation for the work of psychologists and any person, regardless of academic background or qualifications can open up a practice. There are also no legal patient protections. The new law envisions a self governing body to be called the National College of Psychologists which will be responsible for licensing psychologists and maintaining professional standards. The law also introduces patient confidentiality rights as well as requirements to report criminal activities.
Parliament has approved the sale of the former national stadium to the US government. The land will be used for the construction of a new US Embassy as well as a public park. The historic gates of the stadium will be retained and refurbished. The sale price was agreed at $18 million dollars with an additional $7.5 million dollars allocated for potential compensation to cover difficulties relating to the transfer of the property. The US government plans on investing $240 million dollars in construction of the embassy and the surrounding park.
The General Inspectorate of Migration is under fire for refusing to extend the residency of Chinese PhD student Meiling Yao. Yao has lived in Moldova with her husband, also Chinese, since 2016 and the couple has a daughter who was born here. She graduated Moldova State University with a Masters in Physics at the top of her class. Now she is preparing to defend her PhD dissertation related to the microbiological diversity of Moldovan grape varieties. The situation became public after business leader Vasile Tofan drew attention to it on social media and called out the difficulties that highly qualified immigrants have with the General Inspectorate of Migration. Following the drama on social media the General Inspectorate of Migration reversed course saying that Yao can update her application with some more documents and will be allowed to stay.2
Presidential candidate Andrei Nastase attempted to gift Maia Sandu a book called “Letters to Trump.” The book, which costs $100 from Donald Trump’s online store is filled with flattering letters the former president received during his time in office. Nastase purchased the book while attending the Republican National Convention this month and said that President Sandu should read it so that she understands “what a real democracy should look like.” Nastase attempted to enter the Presidency to present Sandu with the book but was prevented from entering by security. He then gave the book to a security guard. UK media outlet The Independent recently wrote a glowing profile of Nastase and his presidential bid which curiously failed to mention that he is polling at under 1%.
Chisinau still cannot pass a municipal budget for 2024. The budget should have been presented by the mayor to the city council for approval in December 2023. Since that time the mayor’s office has frequently promised the budget was almost done and continuously not delivered one. Things became more confused in the spring when they announced that the budget was ready but “accidentally” uploaded the 2023 budget to their website… and then never fixed it. Now the city council is finally considering a draft budget but did not approve it in the first reading and demanded clarifications from the mayor. Mayor Ceban has blamed PAS for the failure and threatened this week to run for president if they don’t pass the budget. It is unclear how this threat is meant to compel the city council. The disfunction in the city is confusing residents who recently got sanitation tax notifications that clearly called the tax “voluntary.” The tax papers were sent out before the approval of the taxes, which also came 6 months late.
PAS proposes, then withdraws, bill on compensating diplomats for their children’s education. PAS deputies in parliament passed a bill in the first reading providing a 700 euro monthly stipend to diplomats stationed abroad for use in paying for their children’s education. The government justified the bill saying that diplomats posted to countries often have to pay for private education so that their children can go to school in a language that they speak. The bill drew immediate criticism from the opposition which claimed that this money would create a "parasitic class of rich kids" and that this money should be spent on higher pensions or various other populist causes. Former Prime Minister Chicu also floated a conspiracy theory calling these payments “bribes” so that diplomats will falsify elections in the diaspora for PAS. Responding to criticism PAS deputies initially reduced the funding to 500 euros / month per child and then withdrew the bill completely. This political fight continues a trend of disingenuous opposition attacks against attempts to increase salaries for civil servants.3
Crime and Corruption
Here’s a roundup of the top crime, corruption and Shor news of the week:
Watchdog released a report showing that in spite of sanctions Ilan Shor’s spending on Facebook and other US tech platforms is increasing. The report showed that Russian disinformation continues to spread through American platforms and explains that the Moldovan government has few tools to counter it. I wrote an article this week for Euractiv tracking this spending. We’ll send the article out in the newsletter next week, but if you want to read it now check it out at Euractiv.
Anti Corruption Prosecutors are investigating the head of the Cinological Union of Moldova for embezzlement. The Cinological Union organizes dog shows in Moldova and internationally. Prosecutors allege that the head of the group embezzled 17 million lei, out of the organization’s total income of 19 million lei, over the last few years.
“Commander Butcher” and 764. Last week we wrote about how a white supremacist terrorist named Mikhail Chkhikvishvili, alias “Commander Butcher,” was arrested in Moldova as part of a joint Moldovan-FBI investigation. We still don’t know what Chkhikvishvili was doing in Moldova and the authorities are still preparing his extradition to the US. Reporting from Wired has shown that he previously lived in New York in 2022 where he worked at a care facility taking care of an Orthodox Jewish patient. He wrote messages to other members of the group claiming that “I get paid to torture dying jew, I think I almost killed him today.” His organization, the Maniac Killers Cult, was also linked to a different group called 764 which specializes in child pornography, torture and blackmailing kids into self harm, school shootings and suicide. A joint investigation by the Washington Post, Wired, Recorder (Romania) and Der Spiegel (Germany) tracked this group’s international operations including one murder in Romania. Why Chkhikvishvili was in Moldova remains unclear, but even a cursory reading of the reporting linked above shows the Maniac Killers Cult and 764 to be deeply frightening and disturbing organizations. We’ll update as his extradition case unfolds.
International Affairs
Here’s a roundup of the top international affairs and security news of the week:
President Sandu attended the European Political Community (EPC) Summit in the UK last week. At the summit she met with European leaders and in a social media post characterized the event as follows:
"At the European Political Community summit, several friends of our country gathered to discuss cooperation for peace and stability in Moldova. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who chaired the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and European Council President Charles Michel reaffirmed their support for Moldova and praised the reforms we are implementing. We intend to continue working together to make Moldova stronger, maintain peace and develop the economy and improve the living conditions of our citizens in a secure environment,"
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobahidze gave an interview in which he attacked democracy in Moldova and the country’s European path. The Georgian Prime Minister, a member of the pro-Russian “Georgian Dream” party said of Moldova "You see injustice, they opened accession negotiations with a CIS member country, Moldova, which has zero political and media pluralism, with serious problems regarding democracy, corruption. They refused us too. This is a total injustice." Georgia’s progress to the EU halted after parliament rammed through a Russian styled “foreign agent’s law” against massive public protest. The attack on Moldova, by another country aspiring to join the EU is unusual and reflects both Georgia’s turbulent political situation and the outsized role Moldova plays in some other countries in Russia’s near-abroad.4
President Sandu traveled to Paris to attend the opening of the Olympic Games. While there she met with President Macron and other world leaders attending the opening.
The Ministry of Defense has presented a bill in parliament that would allow the use of polygraph machines to test soldiers. The Ministry hopes to use polygraphs to screen people with security clearances.
Author’s Analysis: The laser focus on tax revenues at the expense of economic growth, and in these cases thousands of jobs, has been typical of all recent Finance Ministers. Prime Minister Recean’s choice of a replacement will be closely watched by the business community to see if the government’s most powerful ministry could take a turn towards promoting economic development.
In spite of Moldova’s declining population and general demographic and labor market crisis the General Inspectorate of Migration is notorious for working very hard to keep people out. In a former blog I wrote about my own experience in 2014 when the agency denied my international investor visa before covertly notifying me that it would be granted upon the receipt of a 350 euro bribe (which we did not pay). The situation with corruption has subsequently improved, but the bureaucracy and hostility of the agency has not. It remains the first introduction to Moldova’s bureaucracy for foreigners - an experience that regularly involves hostile, rude bureaucrats who seek to not only reject but also to humiliate applicants.
PAS struggles against populist rhetoric to increase salaries. On the face of it, opposition attacks here are disingenuous. 123 children were set to benefit from the changes costing the state around 1 million euros per year - this would amount to a monthly increase in pensions of about 2.5 lei. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs argued that the bill is critical to maintaining a professional diplomatic corps because the monthly salary of an ambassador is only 21,000 lei (plus a living stipend calculated country to country). Diplomats with children often leave the diplomatic corps because they cannot pay for their children’s education. Similar backlashes occurred when PAS moved to dramatically increase the salaries of ministers and senior officials. Government service in Moldova does not pay well and PAS has had serious trouble attracting professionals to these jobs. In past oligarchic governments, unofficial cash salaries were provided to senior officials in order to attract and retain talent. Attacks on these salary raises are most often being leveled by people who participated in these schemes or benefited from them in the past. Hypocrisy aside, populist rhetoric like this lands well with some voters and makes it harder for PAS to pass reforms that allow for the attraction of more talent.
This spring I had the chance to travel to Armenia for a conference hosted by the Center for International Private Enterprise. While I was there, I was shocked to find everyone I talked to, from young Armenians, to Russians who had fled their country due to the war, to taxi drivers, spoke glowingly of Maia Sandu. Moldova does not see itself as a country with much in the way of “soft power” but in the Caucuses people closely follow Moldova’s reforms and European direction. Attacks like this from the Georgian Prime Minister, puppeting Russian talking points, imply that this is more than just my anecdotal experience.