After the Action and Solidarity Party won the latest parliamentary elections, its leadership, whose members have Romanian passports, wants to force the union of the Republic of Moldova with Romania, an article published by the Russian Strategic Culture Fund in Russia and published by Moldovan media as well infers. A series of newer or older false narratives such as those regarding the US involvement in the elections in the Republic of Moldova, the “Romanian gendarme” and the transformation of the Republic of Moldova into an enemy of Russia are also resumed.
NEWS: “The Action and Solidarity Party in the Republic of Moldova, led by Maia Sandu, but more precisely by the American ambassador Dereck Hogan, won the July 11 parliamentary elections. By the way, the victors provided a good example of hybrid warfare. A whole crowd of missionaries with books of psalms about human rights in one hand and bundles of dollars in the other washed the brains of the local politicians so well that it made them believe in foreign gods once and for all and build this campaign around idols revered across the ocean.
But the victory celebrated by the US State Department and Maia Sandu's party activists, all holders of Romanian passports, is not felt in the same way by Moldovans, who are beginning to suspect that they are going to be turned into “Bessarabians”.”
Next, the author quotes the words of a person born in the Republic of Moldova who settled in Russia and who claims that his parents “went through the Romanian occupation (the union of Bessarabia with Romania 1918-1940)”, and the Romanians treated the local population as they would “animals” and “we were in the situation of a second-class people”.
“There are many testimonies of this kind. The Romanian occupation has left such deep traces in the lives of Moldovans that they have not been forgotten until now. Not only because the Romanian soldiers behaved disgustingly, but also because they brought along the principle of the attitude of “Greater Romania” towards “leprous Bessarabia”. That is why ordinary Moldovans are not at all driven by the desire to unite with the Romanian “promised land”.
NARRATIVES: 1. The West, especially the USA, got involved in the elections held in the Republic of Moldova. 2. The victory of PAS in the early parliamentary elections of July 11th does not reflect the will of the citizens, it’s just the result of the interference of foreign forces. 3. The citizens of the Republic of Moldova do not trust Romania, also because of the Romanian gendarmes who beat the local population during 1918-1940. 5. The citizens of the Republic of Moldova do not want the union with Romania. 6. After the victory of the right in the Republic of Moldova, a forced union with Romania could be set up.
LOCAL CONTEXT / ETHOS: The Action and Solidarity Party, close to the pro-European president Maia Sandu, won the early parliamentary elections of July 11th with 53% of the votes, which secured them 101 seats in parliament. This is the highest electoral score that a political party has ever got in parliamentary elections in the Republic of Moldova and also the first time that a right-wing party wins the election by itself.The election campaign was marked by accusations from the political left about the involvement of the West, in particular of the US ambassador, in the running of the elections. PAS and the Electoral Bloc of Communists and Socialists accused each other of using external financial resources in the campaign. The EU announced during this period that it would provide financial support worth 600 million euros. Romania and the USA announced that they were donating important batches of anti-Covid vaccine, but Russia too made a donation of Sputnik V.The geopolitical vector is one of the main topics of discussion in society, especially during election campaigns, given that in the Republic of Moldova, even if most citizens opt for EU integration, there is an important part of the population that wants their country to get closer to Russia and join the Eurasian Union, controlled by Moscow.And the topic of a potential union of the Republic of Moldova with Romania is one that triggers debates. There are politicians, but also a growing number of citizens who consider it part of the Romanian space and opt for the union of the two states, but there is also strong opposition to it and even threats from the autonomous region of Gagauzia, which says it will separate in case of a union with Romania.
PURPOSE: To undermine the legitimacy of the election results in the Republic of Moldova by presenting them as the outcome of American interference. To bring back to the collective memory the narratives about the “Romanian gendarme”. To present the unionist movement in the Republic of Moldova as an option supported by a political elite holding dual citizenship, which is not pursuing the interests of the Republic of Moldova. To induce the idea that there is a risk of a forced union between Republic of Moldova and Romania.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: In the Republic of Moldova, as in many other countries, there is an alternation in power between the right and the left. PAS's victory in the early parliamentary elections comes in the context of Maia Sandu's winning the November 2020 presidential election, after two years of socialist rule in which, according to experts, Igor Dodon and the Socialist Party made many mistakes and disappointed their electorate, and during which several details came to light which call their integrity into question.The Republic of Moldova is a country crushed by corruption, and Maia Sandu is considered a person able to fight this scourge, an image she built during her tenure as Minister of Education, between 2012-2015.The “Romanian gendarme” narrative, according to which the Romanian authorities behaved inappropriately towards the population of Bessarabia after the Union of 1918, was promoted during the Soviet period and is one of the “scarecrows” currently used against a potential union.The number of supporters of the union with Romania has been gradually increasing in the Republic of Moldova to reach about 30% of the population, according to polls, even if we can assume that many of them support the union only because they have lost trust in the future of Moldova as an independent state or are attracted by the higher pensions and salaries in Romania.According to the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, decisions regarding the “sovereign, independent and unitary character of the state”, i.e., including a possible union with Romania, can be made only through referendum.
GRAIN OF TRUTH: According to polls, most of the population is not in favor of the union of the Republic of Moldova with Romania
THE NARRATIVES BENEFIT the Kremlin, the Bloc of Socialists and Communists
