We have gone too far, faking democracy and democratic state. Since we got our independence, we have forgiven too many buffoons of all kinds, who settled in Moldovan politics… So many that today Moldova no longer belongs to us or belongs to us formally. We have reached the critical point, from which we have but two choices: either go outside the law or we give up this state. 

Reaching this critical point was inevitable. After 1994, the parties gradually removed the intellectuals, the golden generation of the national liberation movement, out of the political circuit. The parties themselves fell into the hands of political traders and moneylenders, who pursued their interests, speculating on ideals. 

The first party who began robbing Moldova, making money in politics, was the Democratic Agrarian Party. They ravaged mercilessly the villages and the village population. The agrarian democrats got into the Parliament as presidents of collective farms from the Soviet period (kolkhozes) and heads of districts and came out as boyars with large quotas, estates, villas, pensions, wineries and other luxuries taken from the public good. 

In 1998, the Democratic Party took over with the slogan: Movement for a Democratic and Prosperous Moldova. Dumitru Diacov, who entered politics on the list of agrarians, founded the party. Back then the privatization period began, and the state got robbed once again. The first millionaires and bankers appeared. The political world became entangled with business. 

It was the golden age of the so-called rulers of the Democratic Party, who got rich fast at the expense of large privatizations. In 2001, the Communist Party took hold of power. They stayed in power for eight years (two consecutive terms) in the interests of the big private business, controlled by the family of Vladimir Voronin, former President of Moldova. 

In 2009, the Democrats came back to the government (joining several alliances, until 2019) and Moldova became famous after 12 percent of its GDP was stolen in what was named the Theft of the Century. 

Parliamentary democracy has been severely damaged. The Parliament becomes a place where deputies can easily be bribed to switch the party. 

On November 4, 2012, President Igor Dodon, the current President of the Parliament Zinaida Greceanîi, and Veronica Abramciuc left the Communist Party initiated the mass party switching in the Parliament. 

Voronin accused Dodon of selling himself to Vladimir Plahotniuc, Moldova’s biggest oligarch, for €3 million. In June 2012, another group of deputies left the Communist Party. The deputy Ion Ceban, the current mayor of Chișinău, left the party in September of the same year. 

Since 2014, former Prime minister Vlad Filat’s Liberal Democratic Party and former President Mihai Ghimpu’s Liberal Party have been split. 

Since December 2015, 14 deputies have defected, in groups, the Communist Party and joined the Democratic Party. All of this party-switching occurred under accusations that the deputies allegedly sold themselves to Plahotniuc.

Presently, the phenomenon is still valid. The Democratic Party, this party that feasted on other parties is slowly but surely ruining itself. On February 19, 2020, six deputies, led by Andrian Candu, former President of the Parliament and Plahotniuc’s godson, left the Democratic Party. Since then, the Democratic Party already has lost more than half of the deputies. 

In four months, Pro Moldova, the political movement that became a party recently, led by Candu, came second in Parliament, after the Socialist Party. Candu says that the opposition needs at least one more mandate to deprive the Socialist Party of a parliamentary majority, to overthrow the government, and launch the procedure for Dodon’s dismissal. 

The Socialist Party started to panic when on June 30 deputy Ștefan Gațcan, a doctor by profession, announced that he was leaving the faction of the Socialists and joining Pro Moldova Party. The next day, the Socialists kidnapped Gațcan, assaulted him, and forced him to submit his resignation as a deputy. Afterward, Gațcan was escorted (according to some sources) to Romania, according to others – to the breakaway Transnistrian region. 

Although Dodon and the Socialists initially accused Gațcan of treason, they changed later their message and accused Pro Moldova of trying to buy him for 500,000 euros. However, rumors spread that Pro Moldova did not need to spend money on Gațcan, as he could’ve been blackmailed. Let us see what Gațcan will say after the so-called isolation. But he will not say more than they allowed him to say.

Deputy Gațcan’s case is not just a political incident. It has nothing to do with defending the honor of the so-called political Socialist family, as Dodon claims.

In broad daylight, a deputy was taken away in the corridors of the Parliament (we are talking about the case, not the person) and interrogated, intimidated, forced to make certain decisions under threat, possibly with death. Nonetheless, the justice system is silent. It is mere banditry. Political terrorism. 

Dodon accuses Gațcan of treason, yet, how should one call his act of leaving Voronin for money in 2012? 

Gațcan is guilty, but he is not to be blamed by Dodon or by the Socialists. The voters of Constituency 38 from Hâncești district, the center of Moldova, whom he represents in the Parliament,  are the only ones whom Gațcan has to announce about his decisions and ask for their opinions. He was not elected on the lists of the Socialist Party. He is an independent deputy and is free to make decisions or vote, at his discretion, which could be more advantageous to the electorate or to the national interests.

Gațcan’s decision could not make the Socialists happy. His departure would have changed the balance of power in favor of the opposition. The Socialists and Democrats risked losing the majority in parliament, the Government led by Prime Minister Ion Chicu, former adviser of Dodon, risked being questioned, and Dodon risked losing the elections, without Chicu in his pocket.

Approving or disapproving party-switching depends on what interests it has to serve. Moldova is a captured state (Dodon has subordinated all state institutions) and the prosecution and the judiciary do not react to the opposition’s appeals about the president’s involvement in serious cases of corruption, external financing, money laundering, and treason. Whether we like it or not, what Pro Moldova is doing now is an action imposed by the inaction of the Prosecutor’s Office and the judiciary.

P.S. The resignation request of the deputy Gațcan is no longer on the agenda of the Parliament. Has Gațcan changed his mind? Has Dodon forgiven him?