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The president of the Republic of Moldova, dismissed Natalia Gavrilița because she wanted a Prime Minister that would purge the opposition, a pro-Kremlin publication writes, also claiming that Natalia Gavrilița was allegedly humiliated in public by her unexpected dismissal. The same publication also reiterates several other false narratives claiming the pro-European administration in Chișinău is a profoundly anti-Russian dictatorship.
Russian media: Maia Sandu publicly shamed Natalia Gavrilița. The president wants to purge the opposition and intensify anti-Russian policies
NEWS: The president of Moldova, Maia Sandu, has dismissed the Government only to appoint another one that would serve the same purpose. Sandu did not run short of words of praise for Prime Minister Gavrilița on social media, thanking her for “the sacrifices and efforts” made against the enemies of Moldova who “wanted war and bankruptcy”. Yet she failed to sweeten her sting. Gavrilița says her dismissal was a public shaming, as she learned about it from rumors on social media, just like the other ministers. She said she was leaving feeling she had fulfilled her mission.
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Moldovan pundits assume that Dorin Recean’s history with the country’s power structures will allow him to crack down on the opposition even more brutally. The Gavrilița Cabinet had already placed on home arrest the most prominent representatives of the opposition. It shut down Russian-language media, banned the ribbon of Saint George and decided to pull down a number of iconic monuments”.
NARRATIVES: 1. Moldova is ruled by an authoritarian regime led by the pro-European president Maia Sandu. 2. The pro-European administration in Chișinău is taking out the opposition. 3. The Moldovan government is anti-Russian: it shuts down Russian-language media and destroys Soviet-era monuments.
BACKGROUND: Friday, February 10, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, Natalia Gavrilița, tendered her resignation, which according to the legislation of the Republic of Moldova also entails the resignation of her entire Cabinet of Ministers. On the same day, president Maia Sandu designated her security adviser and former Interior Minister, Dorin Recean, as the new Prime Minister. Recean is expected to be invested by Parliament, while the leader of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS), Igor Grosu, has already announced Recean will be backed by the Parliament majority.
Natalia Gavrilița, who served as Prime Minister for a year and a half, did not motivate her decision to step down, and during her press conference she referred to the complicated period the country has been through (the war in Ukraine, its consequences on the country’s economy and security, the COVID pandemic, soaring inflation, the energy crisis) and to the achievements of her Cabinet, highlighting the success in obtaining EU candidate status.
The Prime Minister swap was interpreted as a result of slow-moving reforms in the justice field and as a sign of possible tensions at the level of the ruling party. None of these reasons however was invoked by the main protagonists – president Maia Sandu, outgoing Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița or the Prime Minister designate Dorin Recean – when they referred to the growing security risks the Republic of Moldova is exposed to these days. Three days after Natalia Gavrilița tendered her resignation, Maia Sandu condemned a Russian plan to overthrow the Moldovan government by force.
PURPOSE: To depict the pro-European PAS government as an authoritarian and dictatorial regime backed by the West. To sow panic among certain categories of citizens, national minorities in particular, about the “threats” of the PAS pro-European government.
Fact: the Moldovan Prime Minister can be replaced only after resigning or being dismissed by Parliament. Anti-Russian policies – a Moscow propaganda artifice
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: Moldova is a parliamentary republic where the Government is sworn in and can be removed through a no-confidence vote by Parliament. The president has secondary prerogatives in appointing the government – she designates a candidate after consulting with all parliamentary factions and appoints the Prime Minister after having secured Parliament’s vote of confidence. Irrespective of behind-the-scenes pressure targeting Natalia Gavrilița, the decision to step down is her own.
The claim that Natalia Gavilița was humiliated in public after learning about her dismissal on social media is false. Natalia Gavrilița announced her resignation in a press briefing. The Prime Minister’s decision also entails the resignation of her entire Cabinet of Ministers. Furthermore, both Maia Sandu and Dorin Recean made sure to mention the achievements of the Gavrilița Cabinet and refrained from publicly rebuking the Prime Minister. Neither did Natalia Gavrilița criticize the two officials or let on that she was hostile towards them or that they might have humiliated her.
Speculation about the government’s resignation and the installment of Dorin Recean has been circulating in Moldovan media since last autumn. Thus, Friday’s announcement was not as unexpected as politnavigator would like readers to think.
The establishment of an anti-democratic regime in the Republic of Moldova is one of the theses promoted by Russian propaganda, which regularly denounces what it has termed pressure targeting the opposition and harassment against its leaders – the same leaders who are currently subject to criminal investigations for corruption or were actually handed prison sentences in the court of first instance (the case of wanted oligarch Ilan Shor). Opposition leaders who are allegedly oppressed by the government also include the former pro-Russian president Igor Dodon, whose name is tied to a number of criminal inquiries involving a large array of charges, including high treason, or the vice-president of Shor Party, Marina Tauber, who is also investigated in two cases of illegal party funding, and who was also detained in 2019 while Igor Dodon served as president.
The fact that Dodon and Tauber have been placed under pre-trial and not house arrest, as the prosecutors had insisted, is perhaps evidence that the government has no control over the judiciary. The Republic of Moldova ranked 69th in a ranking of 167 states listed in the 2022 democracy index, published earlier this February by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a British research and analysis company. Moldova obtained a rating of 6.23 in the democracy index for 2022, a slight increase compared to the previous year. This is also Moldova’s highest rating in the last seven years.
The introduction of censorship and the ban on Russian-language media is another favorite theme of Russian propaganda. In fact, Chișinău authorities have taken a number of measures in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which were designed to combat propaganda and disinformation. By no means were the measures strictly targeting media outlets in Russia or in any other country. The law that bans the broadcast of certain TV shows affects a specific category of states – those that have not ratified the European Convention on Transfrontier Television. The Intelligence and Security Service blocked both Romanian and Russian-language websites, just as the Audiovisual Council issued warnings and fines to both Romanian-language and Russian-language TV stations.
In December 2022, the Commission for Exceptional Situations of the Republic of Moldova decided to revoke the broadcasting license of six television stations promoting propaganda, most of which were controlled by wanted oligarch Ilan Shor.
The Republic of Moldova has improved its standing in the Press Freedom Index compiled by the Reporters without Borders international organization, climbing from 89 in 2021 to 40 in 2022.
The so-called decision to demolish Soviet monuments is another piece of fake news. Such disinformation flooded the public sphere after a statement made by Moldovan deputy Doina Gherman. Asked in an interview when Parliament will make a decision regarding Soviet monuments, Gherman said she will discuss this idea with her peers – her statement has been misinterpreted by certain media outlets as a done deal.
GRAIN OF TRUTH ADEVĂR: Maia Sandu probably had a say in Natalia Gavrilița’s resignation announcement.
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