What does the West have in store for Moldova? Experts talk about the threat of a new “color coup”
Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin warned that Washington is preparing a “color revolution” in Moldova if Igor Dodon wins the presidential elections of the Republic of Moldova.
The topic of the Moldovan Maidan has been discussed for a long time - events in Minsk and Bishkek are pushing this point. Much indicates that Chisinau is on the verge of serious destabilization.
Experts, commenting on Naryshkin’s statement, told PolitNavigator about the nuances of the situation - about the protest potential in Moldova, about who benefits from the upheavals within the country, about the balance of power of geopolitical players in the Moldovan direction.
Alexander Korinenko, political scientist (Chisinau)
According to sociological polls and the sentiments of citizens in Moldova, Igor Dodon will win the presidential elections. There is only one question: in the first or second round. The big mistake of the pro-Europeans was their bet on former Prime Minister Maia Sandu, but they realized it too late.
Now the situation is really “shaking up”: a number of pro-European experts and analysts are already saying that the elections will be rigged, many NGOs and opposition media have received significant grants to shake up the situation and prepare public opinion for the conclusion that the elections were stolen.
What is the purpose of these protests? The goal is far from presidential elections; we should not forget that Moldova is a parliamentary republic. Let me remind you that the current president was previously removed from office five times by the country’s Constitutional Court, and the new composition of the court confirmed that this practice is legal. If the president is removed, his functions will be performed by the speaker of parliament. The chairman of parliament is appointed by 51 votes, and 67 votes of people's representatives are needed to remove him.
Today we can state the fact that the Socialist Party has no allies, and in the event of parliamentary elections it is only necessary to win in order to appoint its speaker. I believe that revolution is not the goal of Western political strategists, their main goal is to sustain the protest wave until early parliamentary elections.
All candidates have already announced that the current composition of parliament cannot continue its activities and must be dissolved. Therefore, if Igor Dodon wins, he must dissolve parliament at the end of spring in order to stem the wave of protests if he does not want to lose power.
I note that attempts to raise a protest wave were already made at the beginning of March 2020, but due to the pandemic, such “rehearsals” came to naught. The protests will be financially supported by fugitive oligarchs Vlad Plahotniuc and Ilan Shor, whose interests currently coincide with the pro-European opposition.
We will not repeat either the Belarusian or Kyrgyz scenario. The question is mentality - we are not fighters or revolutionaries, so it will be extremely difficult to realize a wave of “popular anger”, and the political strategists who are preparing this protest wave cannot but understand this. Here, first of all, they will use marginalized sections of the population, for example, combatants who took part in the 1992 Dniester war.
Vladimir Yastrebchak, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Transnistria
In my opinion, Igor Dodon’s chances of winning are still somewhat preferable, but the experience of many states shows that just winning is not enough, it is very important to be able to maintain this victory. And in this regard, one cannot help but pay attention to the tenacity with which almost all opposition politicians are already promoting the topic of possible election fraud and, as a consequence, the need for subsequent civil protests.
In essence, people are denied the right to choose, claiming in advance that only a specific candidate can win, and all others are “bad” people. Or here are Pridnestrovians with Moldovan citizenship, who - it’s scary to think - could take part in the presidential elections in Moldova. These trends are very dangerous not only because they can lead to destabilization of the post-election situation, but also to the division of citizens into categories, first and second (which, no doubt, includes Pridnestrovians, and therefore they should not be allowed to participate in the elections - after all, they are not the correct “Western” diaspora), into “good” and “bad”.
I would also draw attention to the fact that for some reason only Moldova is afraid of the “organized transportation” of citizens to vote, while other states organizing their elections here, on the contrary, expressed dissatisfaction when such an “organized transportation” did not exist. So the predetermination that comes through in the statements of those contenders who do not allow for any other scenarios other than their victory is alarming. And this is precisely what can become a trigger for general destabilization.
As for Mr. Naryshkin’s statements, it is difficult for me to imagine a situation in which such a high-ranking official could afford such statements without sufficient grounds. Another thing is that the specificity of the department headed by Mr. Naryshkin is that the sources of even the most reliable information are almost never disclosed.
In any case, for now the United States is unlikely to be able to teach a lesson in an adequate, sane, transparent election campaign, although, of course, they are quite capable of writing the appropriate script for others.
Igor Shornikov, Director of the Institute of Socio-Political Research and Regional Development (Tiraspol)
Many experts have been saying that “color” scenarios are quite likely in Moldova for at least the last year – immediately after the resignation of the Maia Sandu government. Even then it was noted that for her this was a successful political maneuver in the context of the upcoming presidential and possible early parliamentary elections.
Having not shown herself in any way during the five months of her premiership, to this day Sandu has managed to preserve the image of an honest and uncorrupt politician - and what else is needed to become the banner of the revolution in a country that has been the leader in Europe in terms of corruption for many years?
Maia Sandu has the support of influential Western politicians and diplomats; since at least 2015, pressure groups have been formed around her figure in the form of non-governmental organizations, the media, and individual public opinion leaders.
The fact that a “color” scenario in the Republic of Moldova is only a matter of time is far from news for the Moldovan political class. The fact that this did not happen earlier is largely the merit of Vlad Plahotniuc, who completely controlled the power in Moldova and himself actively fought for the right to be a Western manager for this country. However, on the one hand, by that time Plahotniuc had already earned an extremely negative image of an oligarch and puppet master, and on the other hand, the West does not need a strong personality at the head of the state, it needs an obedient one.
Events in Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and the Transcaucasus show that new changes are coming in the post-Soviet space. The West is clearly not happy with the current status quo. Russia is more or less successfully coping with sanctions and modernizing along the way, while the post-Soviet states have largely lost the development dynamics that emerged after the devastation of the 1990s and are stagnating. If the situation is left to chance, this will inevitably lead to the development of integration processes around Russia. The West cannot allow this to happen, which is why the regimes are being undermined in states where the image of Russia remains favorable. Moldova in this series is far from the toughest nut to crack.
In my opinion, the appearance of a direct warning from Sergei Naryshkin, who well understands the peculiarities of Moldovan domestic politics, indicates that Russia has less and less leverage that could maintain regional stability, as it did before. Until now, such levers have been the military presence on the Dniester and Moldova’s attachment to Russian markets and Russian gas.
But the EU and Romanian energy and trade policies (DCFTA) are gradually changing the balance of power in the Moldovan direction. If the political leadership of the Republic of Moldova, which may completely change within the next year, allows the further implementation of Western programs in Moldova, this will lead to profound structural changes in the entire region.
It seems to me that Naryshkin’s statement is addressed primarily to the Moldovan political class, which does not understand or pretends not to understand that we are talking about preserving their country as an independent state. Moldova is a very small entity and also has problems with its own identity. Knowing about the aggressive Romanian factor, which has already manifested itself in Moldova in the early 1990s and in 2009, it is not difficult to predict that destabilization may well ultimately turn into “unire.”
Moldovan politicians and the Moldovan people, of course, can do whatever they want with their country, but, unfortunately, Pridnestrovie turns out to be a hostage to the Moldovan situation. And Pridnestrovie is almost half a million Russian compatriots, of whom at least 200 thousand are citizens of the Russian Federation. Surely in Moscow, when dealing with Moldovan affairs, they also keep the fate of the Pridnestrovians in mind.
English version :: Read in English: What does the West have in store for Moldova? Experts on the threat of a new "color revolution"