Every stick has two ends. Until June 8, we seriously thought  that Vlad Plahotniuc is the biggest problem for Moldova. Over the last seven or eight years people have thought of him as the greatest evil. It was absolutely normal for them to rejoice when, on June 9, Plahotniuc was forced to surrender to the new situation created after the February 24 parliamentary elections. He ordered then Prime Minister Pavel Filip to withdraw his team from the ministries and from the Government House, protesters to leave their tents and he had to accept the loss of any chance of remaining in power or in the country. In military terms, what happened on June 9 was a capitulation. The self-declared most powerful political leader and political party capitulated.

A few days later, after fleeing Moldova (to this day the special services do not want to give an answer on this issue), Plahotniuc announced his withdrawal from PDM leadership. Naturally, the people were happy to hear that but regretted Plahotniuc’ s escape.

Next came the third wave of triumph, with ACUM leaders and some extra-parliamentary parties asking the General Prosecutor’s Office to initiate the criminal prosecution procedure of Vlad Plahotniuc and Ilan Shor, announcing them in international search, demanding their arrest, extradition, investigation and conviction for massive money laundering and for state capture. People applauded again.

Two days ago came the fourth wave, when Plahotniuc announced that he was resigning as deputy for constituency 17 and withdrawing from Parliament because he did not want to serve Russia’s interests through a Moscow-controlled Parliament.

In the meantime wave five started: several days ago the Democratic Party’s Honorary President, Dumitru Diacov, said in a public speech that following the extraordinary congress on September 7, “the Democratic Party will become a different party, a reformed party, without Vlad Plahotniuc.” Is it true? It remains to be seen. Of all the statements made so far, Vlad Plahotniuc didn’t say anything about leaving the Democratic Party. He did mention resigning from party leadership and from Parliament. But not from the party itself. An influential party member like Vlad Plahotniuc, with the amount of money, interests and ego he has, cannot be easily ignored if the Democratic Party wants to get rid of him. The Democratic Party has been through crises before, (not crimes), it has experienced falls and injuries, it is not the first to stumble (although being in Plahotniuc’ s hands, stumbling may be too generous of a word), but it has recovered. So far there is no other case in our political history of a party failing to pass the elections and still have a comeback to active politics. 

After its 2001 defeat the Democratic Party had a comeback in 2005 and remained in the Parliament for 22 years, up until now. Will it succeed to get back up and regain the favour of the electorate this time around? Will it have the power and the courage to pass through penance successfully? The situation is not simple at all. It is the only party so far that, as a governing party, has taken advantage of its status and has committed crimes against the state. The consequences are serious. And the costs are high.

Former prime minister Ion Sturza, who was named by the Democratic Government in 1998, says that for the way it has governed, the Democratic Party should be removed from the Moldovan political party list and definitively outlawed. “The Democratic Party must be declared illegal. It was not a party, it was a gang that worked to the detriment of the country and its citizens…There is evidence that it was an organized group, which acted outside the mandate of a political party…It needs to be taken down,” Sturza says. Logically, this would be the verdict. And then?

Let’s imagine that the Democratic Party is removed from the lists of the Ministry of Justice and is outlawed. What’s next? Who replaces the Democrats on the center-left of the political spectrum? Renato Usatîi? Mark Tcaciuk and Iurie Muntean? Or do we give Dodon’s Socialists the green light to grow their electorate and in the event of early elections, take advantage of other reserves (Shor’s electorate), to become a majority party in the next Parliament? Day by day Dodon is becoming more and more dangerous for Moldova. Within the two months since the creation of the Socialist-ACUM Bloc, Dodon took control of all state security structures (Army, Intelligence and Security Service, State Guard), Parliament (following the Presidency), the Ministry of Reintegration, the Prosecutor’s Office, the National Anti-Corruption Center, the Special Services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Now the Constitutional Court and the Superior Council of Magistrates are to follow, and soon we can be surprised by a peaceful transfer of power to Russia.

It is clear that Dodon wants to achieve a certain goal, but the governing coalition consists of two more parties: the Action and Solidarity Party and the Dignity and Truth Platform Party. Dodon fortified his power and became a bigger problem and danger for Moldova than Plahotniuc. Don’t Năstase and Sandu see that? If this is the price of the alleged “de-oligarchization,” then Moldovans have to be asked if they agree to pay this price.

This whole naive story of de-oligarchization reminds me of the “clean hands” saga of 1999, also inspired by Moscow and put into action by the Popular Christian Democratic Party. The Sturza Cabinet was overthrown under the pretext of fighting with the “dirty hands” of the Government, bringing the Communists to power, and derailing Moldova to this day from the list of candidates for accession to the European Union. This time, Russia went further. What are you doing, ACUM deputies? 

Petru Grozavu,