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  • Moldovan Mess.

    I cannot claim to perfectly understand what is going there but there are present two Presidents, two Governments, one Parliament and one Supreme Court involved.

    Some back story in this mess is that was inconclusive election in February and until recently the elected Deputies (MPs) had not been able to form a coalition. This changed last week when the pro Muscovite Socialist Party surprised everyone by forming a coalition with it's enemy; the pro EU Democratic Party (Acum) with the Democratic leader Pavel Filip becoming Prime Minister. Then the Court got involved; for some breach of Presidential authority they ruled that the sitting (pro Muscovite) President Dodon could no longer be President and appointed Filip as President which replacing him as Prime Minister with Maria Sandu (a former Executive of the World Bank). President(?) Filip thereupon promptly called a new election.

    So the claims and counter claims of illegalities here are as you can imagine plentiful. First off it is claimed that coalition was formed after the legal deadline. I am not sure how long that is in Moldova but six months in Ukraine (as recently used as a device to delay an election here since the law here stipulates that the Rada must be given six months to form a new coalition before hassling everyone with a new election). This allegation is denied by both the Moldovan Parties involved.

    Then there are questions regarding the Court's jurisdiction - can it appoint a Prime Minister? The question of Mr Dodon's failures in his Presidential responsibilities would also seem peculiar though I am not sure if there is a Parliamentary impeachment process in Moldova nor remotely conversant with their law.

    So there you have it and you can imagine both sides are accusing each other of the most serious breaches of constitutional legality and the fight might come on the streets.

  • #2
    So Filip (Democratic Party) has now resigned as PM and Sandu (Acum pro European party) is now President and the Supreme Court is asked to resign. Meanwhile the mainstay of the 'Democratic Party', an 'oligarch' named Vladimir Plahotniuc fled Moldova to Turkey 2 days ago (http://www.uawire.org/moldovan-democ...ee-the-country). Other 'Democratic' Party members have since followed.

    For more insight into this complicated mess listen to this CEPA podcast: https://www.cepa.org/moldovas-shifti...rdUCQqUajH14xU

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    • #3
      Deutsche Welle simply calls Moldova "the Venezuela of Europe" now.

      That Plahotniuc has fled isn't exactly a surprise. Russia still has that 2015 arrest warrant out on him for attempted murder.

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      • #4
        Not quite fair considering Venezuela's potential wealth in oil reserves compared to the natural reserves of Moldova and Muscovite imposed division (due largely to there being a Guards Division of the Soviet Army there when the USSR broke up who promptly ran amok and set up the non state of Transdnistria or the 'Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic' as it calls itself which exists today).

        Meanwhile the chaos seems to be sorting itself out. There are reports that the head of the Supreme Court has resigned in compliance with the new PM's request. The call for new elections are still disputed though the Council of Europe regards the grounds as unsatisfactory, which if correct may mean that if new elections were held they would be regarded as illegitimate in Europe (https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/...red-conditions). A similar situation may occur in Ukraine which I will describe in the Ukraine thread.

        A new Foreign Minister (Nicu Popsecu) has been appointed and doing the rounds in Brussels (though not yet to Kyiv). He is not a 'Party' animal so much but a former member of the European Council. If you understand some French and/or Latin the Romanian here should not be hard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xMztT0bcMk

        Some expect a backlash from the pro Moscow Socialist Party which formed an unlikely and possibly a short lived coalition with the reformist Acum Party but Popescu says they are agreed on financial issues for now and not worrying about longer term foreign policy orientation for now.

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