Igor Dodon’s surprising announcement about his withdrawal from political life and entry into business early last week raised a lot of questions regarding the former pro-Russian president’s actual endgame.
Dodon’s withdrawal – a smokescreen?
Whereas his former mentor, Vladimir Voronin, said last month he would step down from the helm of the Communist Party, which he has led with an iron fist for over two decades, Igor Dodon will renounce the leadership of the Party of Socialists in the Republic of Moldova (PSRM) merely formally. In fact, by no means will this be a withdrawal, merely a sidestep at a time when the pro-Russian opposition in Chișinău has lost all power. Dodon’s approval rating has been dropping constantly for some time. He lost the presidential election of November 2020, and the early parliamentary election of July 2021. These last two failures have been fatal for Dodon in the eyes of Moscow, who now wants either to find a replacement for him, or to replace the entire party, which has been dominating the pro-Russian political center-left in Chișinău for nearly ten years.
At a press conference last week, Dodon did not nominate the man who would fill in his shoes at the upcoming PSRM Congress on December 18. He did mention, however, without giving any details, the setup of a so-called “board”, made up of several people. PSRM, like most other parties in the Republic of Moldova, is structured on a well-defined vertical power. The leader of the party is the shot-caller, and he controls the political decision-making.
It’s hard to believe the future “collective body”, as Dodon called it, will be anything less than a cabal loyal to him. At any rate, Corneliu Furculiță, Vlad Bătrâncea and Bogdan Tîrdea make up a “triumvirate” loyal to Dodon. They could be joined by the current mayor of Chișinău, Ion Ceban, un unaffiliated politician apparently, but who de facto always sided with the Socialists. It remains to be seen who could be the fifth member of the “collective body” envisaged by Dodon.
For the time being, Moscow is getting the lay of the land before making a decision on the future structure of the party leadership that will represent its interests in Chișinău. We will either witness a rebranding and an apparently new leadership of PSRM, or the party will collapse altogether. Some pundits in Chișinău believe PSRM is already done for. There are, however, others who believe Dodon’s strategy is to control the pro-Russian political left-wing in Chișinău and persuade Moscow he is not obsolete and a bad bet. The emergence of a new center-left political faction with any kind of support would be fatal to Dodon and PSRM, who in the last 10 years barely had any competition on this side of the political spectrum.
Meanwhile, with Dodon’s reputation seriously damaged after two consecutive defeats in elections, it’s hard to believe Moscow will entrust him with resources and political support so that Dodon may remain the strongman of Moldovan politics.
Activating factors of inter-ethnic pressure
Dodon said he wants to be closer to the people after announcing his double resignation from Parliament and PSRM. In fact, he’s trying to hide behind his pro-Russian supporters, whose numbers are getting thinner by the day in the Republic Moldova. Dodon is trying to capitalize on any political crisis by amplifying it.
The first such episode was when Dodon led a protest some three weeks ago in support of the suspended prosecutor general, Alexandr Stoianoglo. The scandal revolving around Stoianoglo’s dismissal was given interethnic undertones, some voices claiming Stoianoglo was removed from office because he is a Gagauz ethnic. People from Gagauzia were brought over to take part in Dodon’s rally. Previously, at a lower-scale protest held in Comrat, the capital of the autonomous territorial unit, protesters said “the Gagauz people” will support Stoianoglo. In other words, Stoianoglo’s ethnic origin takes precedence over any alleged acts of corruption he might have committed.
Stoianoglo was appointed at the helm of the Prosecutor General’s Office by Dodon in order to save his skin back in November 2019, shortly after PSRM ousted Maia Sandu’s coalition government. A former member of Plathotniuc’s team in the Democratic Party, later siding with the master embezzler Veaceslav Platon, a former business associate during his time in Ukraine whom he actually got released from prison in 2020, Stoianoglo was quick to rally to Dodon’s interests as well.
Elected at the end of a rigged contest and due to the gullibility of the pro-European Action and Solidarity Party (PAS), Stoianoglo was charged with defending the interests of most of the corrupt heavyweights in Chișinău. Thus, Stoianoglo stalled for time in high-profile graft investigations such as “the billion-dollar theft” or “the Russian laundromat”.
After Stoianoglo’s arrest and indictment on four charges of corruption and abuse of office, Dodon’s own safety was now on the line. One question remains unanswered for the time being: did Dodon know about Stoianoglo’s impending arrest or did someone tip him off?
A public sector employee for nearly twenty years, Dodon has amassed a considerable fortune from his state-paid salary. When asked how he could afford to build a three-level house in Chișinău, with a wife working for his childhood friend, Corneliu Furculiță (at present a Socialist MP) and three underage children in his care, Dodon hilariously answered that “their parents are helping out from time to time”, all from retirement.
“The Bahamas file” where Dodon got a 1.5-million-Euro cash injection from Russia via Exclusiv Media, a company owned by the same Furculiță, and a network of his associates, or the “kompromat” prepared by the fugitive billionaire Vlad Plahotniuc, which leads to believe Plahotniuc was regularly bankrolling PSRM and Dodon, are but a few examples of Dodon’s run-ins with the law.
For this very reason, with his back against the wall after Stoianoglo’s arrest and faced with a government willing to put on a show for the masses by making spectacular arrests, Dodon seems to have abandoned ship. He went to Moscow a day after the announcement and hasn’t returned since.
This is not the first time Dodon acts that way. A night before Plahotniuc’s downfall, several sources close to the investigation claimed Dodon had slept at the Russian Embassy for fear Plahotniuc might have him arrested. Dodon dismissed the information as untrue at the time.
However, last week Dodon said: “I’m not hiding behind my immunity. I have nothing to fear from you people. You want to start political investigations, go ahead. We’ll see who’s got the stronger character”.
His courage however lasted just one day. Claiming he was leaving on business and to bring Russian investors to Moldova, Dodon boarded the first flight to Moscow, where he has been for nearly a week, something highly unusual considering his previous visits only took a couple of days.
Moreover, his prolonged absence prompted some analysts to wonder if Dodon will be returning to Chișinău at all, or if he will join the hall of fame of Moscow-backed politicians who were “exiled” after losing power at home, such as Ukraine’s former president, Viktor Yanukovych.
On the Kremlin’s payroll in the Russian-Moldovan “gas war”
Another element worth discussing was Dodon’s PR campaign last week. The Socialist leader travelled to Moscow again to take pictures alongside various business people and former officials. As the new president of the Moldovan branch of “Delovaya Rossiya”, a Russian-Moldovan business association, Dodon started his tour of Moscow by visiting various Russian companies he wants to invest in the Republic of Moldova.
Reputation-wise, Dodon wanted to point out he still has solid connections with the Russian world. Nevertheless, Dodon wasn’t able to get an appointment with any of the Moscow “heavyweights”. While still in Russia, Igor Dodon commented on the Moscow-Chișinău dispute over the signing of a new contract for the delivery of Gazprom natural gas, saying the decision to put out “the eternal fire”, a gas-lit flame at the Eternity Memorial Complex in Chișinău, kindled in memory of the Soviet troops who died in the Second World War, is “a disgrace”.
“The current government decided to save gas to the detriment of values that are sacred to any regular citizen of our country. They should have turned off the heating in the building of the Government, Parliament or the presidential administration. A disgrace!”, Igor Dodon said.
In order to score a few reputation points, Dodon met in Moscow with the first vice-president of Gazprombank, Roman Panov. On the same day, however, Gazprom spokesman Sergey Kuprianov said the Republic of Moldova’s debt isnt’ 433 million USD, but 709 million, all related penalties included. Should it wish to sign a new contract with Gazprom, Moldova will have to sign a longer-term contract at overpriced tariffs, and worse, it will have to pay off its debt to Moscow in full within three years.
Dodon remains a lame duck of Chișinău politics
Dodon won’t give up on his populist stands and won’t de facto withdraw from the helm of PSRM. He will only take a step back in order to deal with Moscow’s projects, both political and economic, speculating any crisis in Chișinău. This may be his last chance at continuing his political career, but also at staying free, should he ever return to the Republic of Moldova.
Not even in “exile” will Dodon’s actions carry any political legitimacy, since his voters grown weary of his performance. Let us recall that Dodon held almost full power in the Republic of Moldova over November 2019 – December 2020, and the country continued to sink deeper and deeper, isolated from its Western doners and in the absence of any assistance from Moscow against the backdrop of the pandemic. Moldovan voters have shown in the last two rounds of election they are no longer willing to bet on the likes of Igor Dodon, and that Moscow is unwilling to bet its rapidly-dwindling resources on any of its supporters in Chișinău.
