Third Time a Charm in Moldova?

Yesterday, the Moldovan parliament failed to appoint a president for the second time. By one vote. The immediate result of these failures to approve acting Prime Minister Zinaida Greceanii of the Communist Party as president will be a new election 45 days after the compulsory dissolution of parliament.

The last election was immediately followed by opposition protests that quickly turned violent despite OSCE monitors' reports that the election was free and fair. Although the outgoing president Voronin has accused Romania of supporting and funding the opposition and the protests, no proof has been profered.

Russia is keenly interested in the outcome of the power struggle in Moldova as it has a firm hold on what is essentially a criminal regime in the breakaway region of Transdniestria. Transdniester is on the left bank of the Dniester. It proclaimed its status as a republic in September 1990 and declared its independence in August 1991, at the same time as Moldova. It is supported by the present Russian government much as Russia supports South Ossetia and Abkhazia - although unlike the latter two regions, Russia has never recognized the independence of Transdniestria. That may be next.

Russian foreign policy in Europe is to prevent any further rollback of its influence and to extend that influence where possible. If Romania succeeds in pulling Moldova out of Russia's sphere of influence, then Transdniestria becomes untenable; but it is unlikely that it will ever rejoin Moldova and will continue as transit center for illegal arms, human trafficking and drugs.

Despite vast sums of money spent by the EU, World Bank, the Swiss and USAID, Moldova remains outside Europe. As the Czech Ambassador Pyotr Kupr said recently, he is doing his best to bring Moldova closer to Europe. He has been only modestly successful. "People are interested in foreigners when it comes to making a profit. They do not think like Europeans. There is no civil society, no independent mass media... There is only so much one can do on the micro level."

The fact that there is has been little to no success in developing civil society or an independent media in Moldova after so many years and so much money expended by international organizations is evidence that the development community is either doing something terribly wrong or the Moldovan people don't care. Or both. So why are the aid agencies continuing with the very same programs they have funded over the past 15 years?

A new election may end the control of the only democratically elected Communist government in Europe and begin to turn wheels of change. How much capital will Romania and Russia be willing to expend to either fulfill this result or oppose it?

Moldovan moves

President Veronin of Moldova has done something I would not have expected - requested a much faster EU accession process. This will not sit well with Russia, I assume. The EU response will be interesting.

Too much going on...plus Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine

I've been swamped with work in Ghana and events in Europe and Asia are cascading in ever increasing speed. However, I intend to get to it this weekend and we should be posting from Damascus and Baku shortly (reading this guys?).

First, there is Moldova where the recount confirmed the recent vote and victory for the Communist (sic) party by a hair and protests are likely to continue despite the outrage expressed by President Medvedev who really, really hates color revolutions. I find the offer of passports by Romania to 1 million Moldovans an interesting move - one that Russia uses to then follow up with an invasion to protect its "citizens". How far will Russia go with Moldova? Better - how far will Bucharest go?

Second, there is Georgia where protests are also likely to continue but may be bolstered by actual political alternatives to Saakashvili. Who will it be? What will he or she propose vis a vis Russia and NATO? Russia's dispatch of its entire Black Sea fleet this past week - with landing ships preceding the blue water craft and the rapid buildup in Abkhazia is meant as a threat. But to do what? The NATO exercise scheduled for early May has led to some hysterical statements coming out of Moscow. Perhaps the window of opportunity for Russia is closing a bit. Perhaps not. Saakashvili still needs to go but the opposition needs to have a leader and a plan of which there is absolutely no evidence so far.

Turkey and Armenia are shaking hands and Baku is stamping its foot like a spoiled child. Will the end of April see open borders? How will Russia react? How will Turkey handle the upcoming meetings with the EU regarding gas and oil supplies through Turkey? Is that why Putin and Gazprom are off to Bulgaria? Will Turkey risk Russian retaliation if it makes a deal with Armenia and pushes the Russians out?

Ukraine is, well, Ukraine. Will the IMF advance it the funds it needs to stabilize or continue to require unreasonable actions to reduce the budget deficit? They left Kyiv without saying. Will all the old guard need to die off before Ukrainian politicians serve their country more than themselves? Perhaps.

So...plenty to post about and as soon as I am out of the jungle in the Volta region of Ghana, I will.

Georgia, Moldova, Turkmenistan and Armenia

Except for Turkmenistan, the donor community has poured tens of millions of dollars into Georgia, Moldova and Armenia. For all the money, Moldova remains an economic basket case and Georgia is in entropy mode. Armenia may move away from the downward spiral it has been experiencing since the end of the 1993 war with Azerbaijan - but it won't have anything to do with the development aid it has received over those years. It will be because of changes in the geo-political make-up of the region, the rise of Turkey and a resurgent Russia intent on re-creating the Soviet Union.

Moldova is an interesting case because I recall a heavy emphasis - at the expense of economic and business support - on civil society programs. This was particularly the case with USAID whose local mission was in thrall to civil society. The problem with that is a poor household does not really care about civil society if it has little or no income or food. What is also surprising is for all intents and purposes, the current government won the election by a few points. They call themselves "communist" but in reality they are not. They simply have an un-reformed soviet style system - despite all that foreign aid - which lives up to its previous inefficiency. Moldova's biggest and unrecoverable mistake was seperating from Romania. The second problem is the Transdneister, that sliver of illegal, trafficking, blackmarket and gun-running dirt with its own unrecognized passport and thousands of Russian troops to protect it from Moldova, of which it is a part. The Transdneister problem is what keeps Moldova tied to Russia. No development aid that does not take that into consideration will succeed. Nor will it succeed without strong political will within the Moldovan government to change. That may require a change in the system.


Georgia - well, that's a different case. It is very clear that Saakashvili must go. It may be that his attempt to assert central government control over the break-away regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was partly due to his promise to the more nationalistic parties in Georgia to do so and thereby win the last election, but now comes the blow-back. It was never really important for Georgia to regain control of those two regions over which it has had no effective control for a decade. Even if Russia has overreached and concentrated the attention of Turkey and Azerbaijan on its newly imperial ambitions, Georgia is now in danger of disintegration as long as Saakashvili remains. If Georgia loses Batumi, then it loses its oil transit revenues. A graceful way out is needed and the opposition must come up with a plan for moving forward economically, socially and politically and not just have the removal of Saakashvili as its goal.

Turkmenistan has now accused Russia, through Gazprom, of blowing up its gas pipeline on the Uzbek border this week. That may well be true. It will be interesting to see how the gas war develops because Russia is determined to gain almost total control of gas resources either through production or lines. This is the real great game developing in the western areas of Central Asia.