Fears are confirmed that the lack of support for Moldova’s President Maia Sandu by the parliament will stir her to cozy up to Russia, despite her Western-leaning campaign promises.
Half a year after she won the presidential election, Sandu is trying to call parliamentary re-elections to win the support of the law-making body that is now blocking her attempts to reform the country.
We outlined in November 2020, that having gained the presidency, Sandu would not get parliamentary support, therefore. Her PAS, in a bloc with ACUM, has got just 15 seats of the 101-seat parliament. As a comparison, the Socialists have 37 votes, and the Democrats have 13 seats. Such support by the parliament will not allow for serious reforms. This means high risks of a large slippage in support for Sandu as early as in 1.5 years of presidency.
The Socialist Party of Russian-minded former president, socialist Igor Dodon, backed by advisers from among senior Russian intelligence officers (SVR) in the presidential campaign last year, has jumped with two feet into the election campaign amid an unfavorable epidemiological situation and drop in the polls, playing the vaccination card. The latest IMAS poll shows that Sandu’s PAS has 42.5% now, while the socialists have 32.7%.
Dodon’s party is trying to accuse Sandu of disrupting the vaccination campaign in Moldova. Dodon, together with the Russians, takes advantage of high-quality vaccine shortage in the global market for geopolitical purposes. Russia seeks to discredit the policymakers in other countries by criticizing their response to the pandemic and make the contracts to supply Russian vaccine that has not passed all required clinical trials, so that the political regimes would be dependent on the Kremlin, and Russia would win the support by the people in such countries.
Sandu joined the game imposed by Russia to bring down Dodon’s political dividends gained by Russia’s vaccine supply. That is confirmed by the fact that she sent a letter to President Putin, asking to provide Moldova with Russian Sputnik V, positioned as COVID-19 vaccine by Russia. Although Sandu sent letters asking for COVID-19 vaccine to the leaders of more than 30 countries, the request to the Russian leaders is a political ploy, as the Kremlin uses Sputnik V purely as a diplomatic tool for influence.
A similar request for Russia’s Sputnik V supply was sent to Moscow by the socialists this February. In early April, Dodon visited Moscow, where he met with Russia’s presidential administration deputy head Dmitry Kozak, who is tackling Russia’s puppet areas, Transnistria and Eastern Ukraine, in particular. Further to the meeting, an agreement to supply 180 thousand doses of Sputnik V to Moldova and Transnistria was reached. Thus, the Kremlin is projecting influence on Moldova’s domestic politics, playing the vaccination card to boost Dodon’s poll numbers and work on Sandu.
If Sandu, therefore, keeps on reflecting Dodon’s actions, who places a premium on the Kremlin’s backing and mobilizing Moldova’s Russian-minded voters, Moscow might gain more influence in Chisinau, with Sandu likely to adjust her policy towards the middle ground with Russia. This forecast will become even more vital in the next few months, when Moldova makes attempts to extend the conditions for export to Russia and to protect the Moldovan citizens who work in Russia.
Moldova has got the first vaccine from AstraZeneca with the help of Romania. Moreover, Moldova has got AstraZeneca and BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine through the Covax platform (a total of 100,620 doses of this vaccine are expected to be supplied).
