Dirty games: Moldova removes ambassador to Russia
The inauguration of the new president, Maia Sandu, will take place on December 24. And "in the last 100 meters," the outgoing and incumbent presidents managed to get into a scandal. (See "Dodon and Sandu clash in a battle for the embassy in Moscow" ). Let's figure out why this whole situation is as disgusting as it is pointless.
Between politics and diplomacy
Andrei Chirillovich (as he is still called in the Moldovan political backstage) Neguta is not just a diplomatic representative. This is a man with a very interesting political career.
Being in Soviet times the first secretary of one of the largest CPSU committees in the republic, in the early 90s he was among the people who recreated the Moldovan Communist Party, banned by the nationalist parliament. Together with future president Vladimir Voronin, he was co-chairman of its organizational council. Then - Secretary of the Central Committee, Member of Parliament, and after the Communists came to power in 2001 - Head of the Permanent Parliamentary Commission on International Relations.
The transition from a political position to a diplomatic one happened unexpectedly - in 2004, a year before the new parliamentary elections (which the Communist Party, led by Voronin, won again). According to the official version, Voronin involved his closest associate in the most important areas. And indeed, while Voronin was pursuing European integration, Neguta represented Moldova at the Council of Europe. And when the president decided to mend shaky relations with Russia, Neguta was sent to Moscow.
The unofficial version is much more prosaic. Neguta was popular in the Communist Party, and was also twelve years younger than Voronin. Many communists believed that when Voronin completed his second presidential term, it would be Neguta who would replace him at the head of the party and state. Voronin had slightly different plans for this and the promising politician had to become a career diplomat.
When in June 2014 Voronin clearly abandoned the course of cooperation with Russia, Neguta, who by that time had been dismissed from his ambassadorial position by the new government, broke off relations with him and left the ranks of the Communist Party. And then he joined the Party of Socialists of Igor Dodon, which sought to seize the palm of the “main pro-Russian force” from the communists. Many believe that the sensational first place for the socialists and third for the communists (the difference between first and third place was only three percent!) is also due to the fact that Andrei Neguta was in the high fifth number on the PSRM list.
However, the deputy mandate was again not fully fulfilled. In 2017, he returned to the post of Ambassador of Moldova to Russia.
And again, sources reported that the matter was not so much the desire of the new President Dodon to send to Moscow a person already familiar with the situation there. Besides Dodon, there were other people in the Party of Socialists who really did not like the overly visible comrade, especially when Dodon introduced him to the top leadership of the party. At the same time, another “Soviet-trained” socialist deputy, Viktor Sorochan, went to Minsk - it was rumored that he had crossed the path of younger fellow party members in his native Balti... Apparently, both were “helped” to occupy honorary, important, but “remote” posts.
Victor Sorochan.
Ambassador of scapegoating
The formal reason for the recall of Neguta from the post of ambassador was the scandal with the smuggling of anabolic steroids. However, clouds began to gather over the ambassador even earlier. Literally after the second round of the presidential elections, lost by Igor Dodon, the “socialist” media began to confidently promote the opinion that the passivity of the Moldovan diaspora in Russia was to blame for everything, and the main culprit was the embassy in Moscow, which failed to drag the diaspora to the polling stations (at that time , how in the West the diaspora broke all records of activity, collecting more than two hundred thousand votes!).
The question arises: what should the ambassador have done? Personally visit the entire million Moldovan citizens living in Russia and drag them to the polling stations? Or force the entire embassy staff to do this, provoking a scandal?
Working with the diaspora is deep and painstaking work. Here you need to find noticeable people and maintain contact with them. We need the work of party emissaries - completely official politicians.
The “right”, by the way, began fruitful work with the diaspora in Europe and America back in the “zero”, when all power in the country belonged to the communists. And they are reaping the benefits to this day.
It must be said that even during the 2014 parliamentary elections in Moscow there were huge queues at the polling stations - and only the shortage of ballots deliberately provoked by the then authorities did not allow thousands, and maybe tens of thousands of people, to vote! But then the “Choice of Moldova – Customs Union” bloc, as well as the opposition politician Renato Usatii, who had not yet disgraced himself before Russia, worked closely with the diaspora.
But the socialists did not even think about working with the diaspora.
Only fourteen thousand voters voted in the second round of the presidential election in Russia? Yes, in the parliamentary elections, a year earlier, less than five thousand votes were cast! It’s just that the socialists didn’t care about it back then - they still won the single-member constituency due to the lack of competitors. But there was no one to think about the fact that votes would be urgently needed in 2020.
But defeat is defeat. And someone has to answer for him. You couldn't find a better candidate for the role of scapegoat.
Indeed, one cannot blame Chisinau mayor Ion Ceban for the fact that in Chisinau the second round was lost by Dodon everywhere - even in traditionally pro-Russian microdistricts? Shouldn’t the executive secretary of the PSRM, Vlad Batrince, be charged for an extremely bad campaign, as a result of which Dodon lost the elections to Sandu in Moldova, even without taking into account the diaspora?
Early parliamentary elections may take place as early as next year. Internal party groups in the PSRM are already preparing to fight over who will get how many of their people into the positions on the list. Nobody wants to be on the receiving end for losing...
But there is a shortage of deputies
Member of Parliament Vladimir Golovatyuk, whom outgoing President Dodon managed to propose for the vacant post of ambassador in Moscow, admitted to the media that he “had no choice.” What can you do, Golovatyuk always did what Dodon asked him to do - although he himself did not pursue positions.
Once upon a time, Doctor of Economics Golovatyuk taught a student at the Moldavian Agrarian University and future president Igor Dodon. And later he worked together with his student in the government of the Communist Party (Dodon - Minister of Economy, Golovatyuk - Director of the Department of Statistics). They carried their friendship through the years.
When Dodon left the communists in 2011 for his own political project, Golovatyuk was one of the first to support his friend and student. And he turned out to be almost the only one from Dodon’s entourage whom the enraged communists did not accuse of treason - such was the respect for him!
In the parliamentary faction, since 2014, it was Golovatyuk who was secretly considered the main professional. He did not join the ranks of the Socialist Party and remained a non-party member of the faction. But when an important programmatic speech from the parliamentary rostrum was required, it was this “non-party technocrat” who spoke. The “political figures of the party” did not stand out against his background.
Perhaps Dodon now thinks that there is no one other than Golovatyuk to entrust such a responsible post to. But there are serious concerns that not a single ambassador will be able to establish work with the diaspora alone, even if they appoint Neguta, Golovatyuk, or the leader of the cult Moldovan rock band “Zdob și Zdub” Roman Yagupov.
But to leave the faction without the current chairman of the economic commission of parliament, a member of the permanent bureau, the most professional legislator of the faction...
Parliamentary elections took place in 2019. And over the past time, a number of experienced professionals have left it, having been “transferred” to another job.
Former Minister of Defense, head of the Moldovan Union of Officers, Victor Gaichuk, left for the post of Secretary of the Security Council (now, however, he has returned to minister). Former Interior Minister Vladimir Turcan moved to the Constitutional Court. Oleg Teterea, an experienced agricultural industrialist and one of Dodon’s closest friends, headed the board of Chisinau-Gas. Former director of the capital's finance department Tatyana Kunetsky went to the Accounts Chamber. For the sake of the post of deputy head of the State Security Service, another faithful comrade-in-arms, Colonel Petru Corduneanu, gave up his mandate. The outstanding historian, ideological leader of the Moldovan Bulgarians Ivan Danilovich Zabunov has passed away...
What kind of people took their places in parliament? Let's not talk about sad things. Let's just say that the qualitative composition of the PSRM parliamentary faction has fallen very much over the past year or two.
Shame out of the blue
The media reported that Maia Sandu planned to retain socialist Andrei Neguta as ambassador to Moscow after taking office as president. If this is so, the newly elected president should be praised - the decision is competent. It’s a gift that Sandu is known for her intolerance towards people of other views, and what Andrei Kirillovich is definitely not is a Westerner.
The funny thing is that Vladimir Golovatyuk is also not the kind of person who would “not smooth out corners, but sharpen them.” To some extent, replacing Neguta with Goloatyuk is even beneficial for her - the ambassador will not purposefully substitute the new president anyway, but Dodon will have one less strong deputy, a potential “talking head”.
Vladimir Golovatyuk.
However, it seems that a scandal can no longer be avoided. An attempt to change the ambassador a week or two before the inauguration of a new president is a case when the parties cannot remain silent.
In this situation, Dodon can only sympathize - he was captured by the interests of his own environment (mainly people who, without him, are of no use or interest to anyone) - and instead of them he is exposed to attack.
But the fact that the fate of the Russian Embassy, the Moldovan-Russian relations themselves, depends on some kind of behind-the-scenes intrigues, far from real state or at least political issues - this is already a shame for Moldova as a whole.
Dirty Games: Moldova Removes Ambassador to Russia