/ world today news/ The election of the head (baskan) of Gagauzia demonstrates the inability of the President of Moldova, Maya Sandu, to control a part of the republic. She does not intend to put up with this, so a new wave of political repression and further deterioration of relations with Russia is inevitable. What is happening in Chisinau and Comrat?
For Russia
In the first round, 36-year-old Grigoriy Uzun and 37-year-old Evgenia Gutsul won. Both candidates received approximately 15,000 votes each. Uzun is supported by the Party of Socialists of former President Igor Dodon, Gutsul is nominated by the “Shor” party. Voter turnout was 57.8%. The second round will take place on May 14.
There were eight candidates in total. The topics are close. the Ukrainian crisis, housing and utility prices, relations with Moscow. Gagauzia is considered the most pro-Russian region of Moldova. In 2022, it was there that the first mass actions were organized against the foreign policy of President Maya Sandu, which exacerbated the economic crisis in the republic.
Uzun was a deputy in the National Assembly of Gagauzia and a deputy in the Moldovan Parliament from the Party of Socialists. He studied in Russia – secondary and higher. Dodon, urging the Gagauz to vote for Uzun, promised to organize Putin’s visit to Komrat.
Ilan Shor, for his part, will build a modern amusement park in Gagauzia and make public transport free – if Gutsul wins. And these are not empty stories. When Schor was mayor of the city of Orhei, carousels did appear there, and morning and evening bus fares were abolished. As for Gutsul herself, before that she was not at all involved in politics and social activities.
Shor involved Russian artists Philip Kirkorov, Stas Mihailov and Nikolai Baskov in the election campaign. In addition, the leader of the LDPR Leonid Slutsky spoke about Gutsul. “I am sure that the people of Gagauzia will make the right choice. We are ready to support Evgenia Alexandrovna’s program if it arises from the needs of the population and is aimed at the interests of every family living in this long-suffering territory,” he said.
Moldova’s ruling Action and Solidarity party failed to nominate a candidate in Gagauzia. Sandu appeared to sympathize with former Bashan Dmitry Kroitor (he led the region from 1999 to 2002), but even he is in favor of friendship with Russia. 5,800 voters voted for him.
Political crisis
Unable to influence the outcome of Gagauzia’s elections, Sandu dealt a blow to the opposition outside the autonomy’s borders. Shor was sentenced to 15 years in prison for withdrawing almost a billion dollars from the Moldovan banking system, stripped of his parliamentary mandate and asked to be extradited from Israel, where he has been since 2019. In addition, several of his major assets were confiscated, which severely hampered the financing of his party.
At Chisinau airport, Marina Tauber, the de facto leader of “Shor” in the republic, was detained and placed under house arrest. She was leaving for Israel, and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office suspected that she would not return. In July last year, she was accused of receiving funds for the party from organized crime groups and falsifying financial statements. Parliament stripped Tauber of parliamentary immunity and the court sent her to prison for a month. Her remand was then changed to house arrest, and she was released under judicial supervision in February.
On May 10, the Constitutional Court will consider the issue of the banning of the “Shor” party. So Gutsul can simply be removed from the election.
At the same time, Chisinau ignited a diplomatic scandal with Russia: the head of Tatarstan, Rustam Minikhanov, was not allowed into the republic. He wanted to visit Gagauzia, inhabited by Orthodox Turks, to support Viktor Petrov, another candidate for the Bashkan. As a result, Petrov received more than 9,000, and Russia and Moldova exchanged diplomatic expulsions.
A question of principle
Exactly one week after the second round, on May 21, a mass rally of Sandu’s supporters – for European integration – will take place in the center of Chisinau. According to her, this will show the whole world that Moldova has tied itself once and for all with the EU. Of course, the elections in the autonomy spoil the idyllic picture. The state of emergency has been in effect in the republic for more than a year, but another round of political repression is clearly unavoidable.
Experts believe that Dodon’s candidate is preferable to Sandu than Shore’s creature. Gutsul jokingly calls herself a “bartender”, but after winning in Gagauzia, she will get a seat in the central government, which is dangerous for the president and other ministers.
Uzun is more talkative. In addition, Sandu already has experience in communicating with Dodon’s candidates: the outgoing Bashkan Irina Vlach is also from the Socialist Party. In the 2019 campaign, she was against unification with Romania and wanted to develop relations with Russia. But in 2020, when Sandu became president, she changed her rhetoric, including agreeing to call the Moldovan language Romanian.
Political analyst Dmitry Kiseev notes: most likely, the decision to ban the party has not been made yet, otherwise there would have been a big media fuss. If Chisinau does not use an administrative resource, the candidate of PP “Shor” will surely win.
“Dodon brought Uzun to the second round thanks to his personal popularity in Gagauzia, but his personal anti-rating is unlikely to give him victory. Shor invested a lot in Gutsul’s election campaign and the locals believe that he will help them financially,” the expert explains.
For now, Sandu is trying to ignore the events in Gagauzia. And Shor does not hide his desire to fail the rally for a European Moldova and wants to use his success in Gagauzia for this. The situation will be clarified on May 14.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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