On August 5, the Prosecutor General’s Office decided to start criminal proceedings on the usurpation of state power that took place between June 7 and 14, 2019 under the former government regime, controlled by oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc. 

“The playing card castle, built by Plahotniuc and his servants, is beginning to collapse … This will inevitably happen, since we got engaged in a process of cleaning the state of oligarchs…” In this sense, the next week might be full of “surprises for many … Dumitru Robu, Interim Prosecutor General, could come before the legislative forum to request the lifting of parliamentary immunity of some members of parliament,” the Minister of Internal Affairs and Vice President of the ACUM Bloc, Andrei Nastase, wrote on his Facebook account. This, he says, could happen on August 12 or 13. Will it happen or not?

The Office of the Prosecutor General took the decision just two months after the Parliament adopted the Declaration on the recognition of the captive character of the Republic of Moldova. This became an asset of the PSRM-ACUM governing coalition, marking the starting point in the democratization of Moldova. Did they succeed? To what degree? Whatever the answer, we must remember the fact that the main offender, Vlad Plahotniuc (and not only him) left the country incognito and is still missing.

It’s true that, in the meantime, Plahotniuc has announced his withdrawal from the Democratic Party leadership (the party being accused of usurping state power), has resigned as a member of parliament and has declared that he ended his relationship with the Democratic Party. However, he remains a fugitive. 

During the same period, some of the forensic evidence related to the usurpation of state power (June 7-14), disappeared or was destroyed. At the same time the Supreme Security Council, directly subordinated to the Head of State, was summoned by Igor Dodon only once. During these two months, staff readjustments have been made in key positions and key institutions (Army, Security and Intelligence Service, Prosecutor’s Office, Justice, Internal Affairs, etc.). But not all of them were accepted by society and not all met the standards of professionalism and meritocracy.

The absolutely arbitrary distribution of state institutions among the coalition parties, contributed to President Dodon consolidating the state power in his hands. 

Question one: what have we obtained in the two months since the adoption of the Declaration – the de-oligarchization or re-oligarchization of the Republic of Moldova? Plahotniuc is gone, is Dodon filling the vacancy? 

Two: will the case on the usurpation of state power be investigated or it will share the fate of the theft of the billion case file? 

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Three: What guarantees do Prime Minister Maia Sandu and Internal Affairs Minister Andrei Nastase have that President Igor Dodon is ready to forfeit his relations with Plahotniuc, to whom he owes his position as head of state? 

And four: is the ACUM Bloc aware of the fact that the file on the usurpation state power can fail (a divorce between PSRM, PAS and PPDA being, for various reasons, inevitable) and that they will have to assume the consequences of this failure? All the initiatives related to the de-oligarchization of Moldova, together with the accusations of usurpation of state power come from the ACUM Bloc (the socialists only took them over) and, if successful, the white balls will go to the ACUM Bloc, as well as the black ones, in case of failure.

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For now, we are in the cheery stage. “I said I will not give up”, “I will fight to the end …”, “My stubbornness has paid off: the new Interim Prosecutor General has approved my request to start the criminal prosecution on the usurpation of state power” etc. These are some of Andrei Nastase’s statements from the beginning of this week, in reaction to the Prosecutor General’s order regarding starting the criminal proceedings on the usurpation of state power. Too much triumphalism for only two months of government, when things are just at the beginning. This is not a reproach, I say it in the hope that Andrei Nastase will understand that there is not much room for “I” in a team and saying it too often will lead to nowhere. And secondly, the world is tired of Dodon, who knows everything and does nothing, and his excessive use of “I” – “I knew”, “I was”, “I told you”, “I warn you”, “without me it doesn’t work”, etc. Dodon’s uses of “I” are peacock -isms. Nothing more.

The Democratic Party also reacted to the decision of the Prosecutor General’s Office and not without reason, for they feel threatened by the starting of a criminal case for usurping state power. A letter was sent to external partners for development on the same day, in which the Democratic Party accused the current government of backsliding on democracy and abuses. Democrats are accusing the government of putting pressure on the Prosecutor General’s Office to open criminal files on PDM members, persecute them, force them to give up their mandates, claiming the government violates freedom of the press and wants to declare the only parliamentary opposition party outside of the law.

“We call on external partners and international organizations to intervene firmly to stop all these government abuses and pressures. We also ask for your involvement in order to convince the politicians in power to return to the constitutional principles, including respecting political pluralism, the rule of law and democratic principles,” writes the Democratic Party in its message addressed to external partners. Nothing about June 8, about tent cities, about blocking state institutions on June 7-14. Nothing about the decisions of the Constitutional Court in those days, about dissolving the Parliament and about declaring the government of Maia Sandu outside of the law. Nothing about the captured state, nothing about Plahotniuc’ s escape, about any of that.  

I was reading the Democrats’ letter and thinking about how good it is that in Moldova, governments change. Even if the new ones are not always better, at least the old ones have a chance to see themselves from the side. For better? For worse?

Petru Grozavu,