So, we’ve heard the OSCE’s views on the elections in Moldova - they were in line with international standards.
But what did CIS observers think? You know, the observers that the Moldovan’s decided not to invite because they thought they were Russians in disguise. Well, Interfax is on the case, in its succinctly entitled article CIS observers: Moldova govt rigs parliamentary elections. It appears that, despite being told not to come, they got a close enough view to make some pretty telling observations:
"The offenses committed by the authorities in organizing and carrying out the elections enables us to say that they were capable of exercising a substantial effect on the results of the elections," Alexei Kochetkov, head of temporary mission for the CIS Election Monitoring Organization (CIS-EMO), said.
In giving examples, Kochetkov said the observers "were alarmed by a ballot paper game" where more than enough ballots were brought to a village that actively supported the Communists but less than enough were brought to villages where "revolutionary sentiments predominate."
Just in case you were in any doubt - the villages with ‘revolutionary sentiments’ would be the ones that were more likely to vote for pro-Russian candidates.
March 16th, 2005 at 7:57 am
Actually, Moldova is a curious case. Voronin and the Communists came to power largely thanks to pro-Russian and nostalgic (”life was better back then”) sentiment in rural areas (Moldova is far less urbanized that Russia). Soon enough, Voronin made a U-turn (a bit like Kuchma, who only sounded pro-Russian), deciding that by opposing Russia he will avoid becoming a victim of yet another orange revolution.
It worked. Moldovan peasants voted Communist again because they had always voted so, just as Russian Communists always win in some areas of Russia, no matter what. This time, Russia supported Urechean’s Democratic Moldova, which is popular in Chisinau (Urechean is the mayor of the capital), apparently with the same types of people who supported Yuschenko in Kyiv. It is also hard to imagine that Voronin did not use the full force of Moldova’s state-controlled media to get himself elected. Yet neither the EU nor the US voiced support for the Democrats. The message is clear: any government is fine as long as it is not pro-Russian.
March 16th, 2005 at 6:42 pm
Alexei,
You are correct to say that Moldova is a “curious case,” but you fail to identify the main reason for this, i.e. the unresolved situation in Transdniester. Russia’s ongoing support for Smirnov’s cabal there was surely a substantial reason why Voronin would have faced an anti-Russian, Moldovan nationalist backlash at the polls if he had not innoculated himself against it - and against the occurrence of an “orange revolution” in Moldova - by going anti-Russian. I do think that it was excessive to bar Russian election observers, but perhaps the Moldovans knew something more than the public about the plans of those “observers.” In any event, Voronin’s “U-turn” was at least in some measure a response to changes in public opinion resulting from Russia’s behavior on the Transdniester issue (and perhaps other issues), and was not purely a cynical political move.
You suggest that “Moldovan peasants” vote Communist with the same predictability as voters in the “Red Belt” area of Russia. This is more than a gross oversimplification, it’s flat-out wrong. In the early 1990’s, Moldova elected a president, Mircea Snegur, who was western-oriented and initially supported reunification with Romania. In 1996, Snegur was defeated at the polls by Petru Lucinschi, who had closer ties to Moscow but was not running under the Communist banner.
In 2001, Moldovan voters turned Lucinschi out of office not so much because they were attracted by nostalgia based on the party affiliation of the Communist (in name only) Voronin, but because they were fed up with the stories of corruption which circulated around Lucinschi and his inner circle, and because Lucinschi had the misfortune to be president at the time of the 1998 crisis, which hit Moldova as hard as it hit Russia, except that Moldova didn’t have oil revenues to help restore growth. I don’t have polling data to reveal the urban/rural breakdown of the voting in each of those elections, but since as you point out Moldova is predominantly rural (though interestingly enough it was the most densely populated of the 15 republics in the 1989 census - lots of small towns) it’s a good bet that these election results were not solely engineered in Chisinau.
Regarding the most recent Moldovan election, I had the opportunity to talk to my in-laws - or, as you might refer to them, a couple of “Moldovan peasants” - about some of the reasons they and many people in their small town were going to vote for Voronin. The reasons they cited - he has raised pensions and presided over a period of growth and relative stability - were actually quite similar to the reasons many Russian voters gave when asked why they voted to re-elect Putin last year. Certainly you are right to note that the media played a role favoring the incumbent in the recent Moldovan campaign, just as the media in Russia did in the run-up to the 2004 vote. I am sure Moldova is not a model democracy, but can the situation there with respect to media manipulation possibly be any worse than the situation in Russia today?
Furthermore, I also spoke with a friend who is a lawyer in Moldova’s second-largest city, Balti (Beltsy, to Russian-speakers), and to my surprise she and her educated, twentysomething son were also both planning to vote for Voronin. So his support was not solely from rural areas, although I’m obviously basing that on anecdotal evidence and don’t have any polling data to prove or disprove that statement.
Perhaps it is time to admit that governments which are not “pro-Russian” are being elected in countries like Ukraine and Moldova not because of western interference or domestic machinations, and certainly not (in Moldova’s case) because the voters there have “always voted” for Communist candidates, but simply because voters in those countries have come to realize that their future interests lie with Europe rather than with Russia. Or is it not possible for anything in the former Soviet space to be so simple?
March 16th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
P.S. I was just thinking…if they could turn back time, don’t you think all of those “unreconstructed communists” in Transdniester (actually they are nothing of the sort - although there may be a few crackpot true believers in the government there, the place is ruled by a tiny kleptocratic elite, and everyone else there lives in poverty or makes a living illegally) would roll the calendar back to the early 1990’s, support Moldovan reunification with Romania and forego the whole secession thing? After all, they would then all be EU passport holders in a couple of years. Of course, who knows whether a Romania containing Moldova would have been successful in joining the EU so soon?
And Alexei, I’m sorry if the last post was a bit stroppy, as the Brits might say, and not in my usual collegial tone, but you got me a bit riled up with the “peasants” reference - because it’s such a common stereotype in Russia that the Moldovans are all either peasants or gypsies - though probably you meant nothing by it.
March 17th, 2005 at 9:15 am
Lyndon, my main point was this: the EU and the US only support democratic opposition if it is anti-Russian. I haven’t seen it disproved. Yes, the US did say the election was not quite free and fair but this amounts to little.
On peasants: this is not in the least derogatory coming from me. Like most Russians, I am descended from peasants in the 3th or 4th generation, and am not ashamed of my anscestors.
On poverty: rural poverty varies in kind dramatically across countries. Indian poverty is extreme; Russian rural poverty is more tolerable — one can’t survive without a place to live, and historically there has been no shortage of timber; infectious diseases are far less common in the moderate climate; water in wells is safe, etc. Moldovan rural poverty seems like affluence to the Russian peasant (and to hosts of the Russian urban poor, too). I don’t know for sure but I’m willing to bet that most of those Moldovans who live in small towns (i.e., are technically not rural residents) have their own homes with gardens that supply more than their basic needs. This way of life is hardly modern but pre-modernity does not mean utter poverty. (Also, Moldova’s GDP is very likely underestimated.)
On Transdniestria (it’s trans- for Moldovans; from this side, it’s cis-): I doubt it is poorer than Moldova or the neighboring Ukrainian areas. No matter how corrupt the Smirnov clan is, Transdniestrians are a de-facto nation, and Transdniestria is a functioning polity. They have to resort to illegal activity, of course, if you mean smuggling, being blocked by sanctions from all sides.
Would most Transdniestrians have forgone secession had they known they would be admitted to the EU within a decade or two? Hardly. The region is multi-ethnic, Russophones outnumbering Moldovan speakers (correct me if I am wrong). Even ethnic Moldovans should expect to become second-rate citizens of Romania; the Russophones could look at Latvia and Estonia to see what was going to happen to them. Not a rosy outlook.
March 17th, 2005 at 10:10 pm
Very interesting development. I need some sleep, so I will sleep on this one. I’ll make a post on it tomorrow and I’ll be sure to hat tip your way Andy.