Chisinau's suburbs reconfirm their status of king-makers

These days, one can see in Chisinau cars with ribbons attached to their antennas or mirrors. There are two kind of ribbons: with orange and black stripes, also called St. George's ribbons, the colors of the Russian victory medals, and they are usually worn by the car owners, who consider themselves as the offspring of the Soviet liberators of Moldova in WWII. The other type of ribbons has red-yellow-blue colors, the same as the ones of the Moldovan and the Romanian tricolor flags.

The fight in the run-off of the local elections in Moldova's capital Chisinau was waged namely by representatives of the 'liberators' and of the Moldovan Romanians, and that highlighted even more the ethnic division of this country, and especially of its capital. The fight was between the Soviet nostalgics, the Russian-speaking minorities and the Romanian-speaking pro-Western Moldovans who remember nothing good about the Soviet Union but the deportations, the Russian alfabet for Romanian and the discrimination.

Igor Dodon, the communist (PCRM)candidate won the second round in the city proper, and garnered most of votes in the first round, however the 18 Romanian-speaking small towns and big villages around Chisinau, part of the municipality, helped the Liberal (PL) incumbent mayor Dorin Chirtoaca to obtain his second term. The electoral struggle was less about building projects and infrastructure and street cleanliness -- as it should be naturally due in a local poll -- the candidates and their teams talked more about the Romanians, who, the communists said in their propaganda TV programs, might conquer Moldova. (Liberal Dorin Chirtoaca does not deny he views himself a Romanian and does not hide his good connections with Romanian president Basescu's PDL party). Instead the Moldovan Liberals professed against the return of the Stalinists with their deportations of the Moldovans, as the iron-hand rule of the Communists from 2001 through 2008 helped them in being persuading enough.

On the other hand, although having been in power, never have the Communists gained the position of Chisinau's mayor. It almost might have happened this time, but the Romanian-speaking citadel of the suburbs surrounding the capital proved its resilience again. In order to conquer the city, the Communist candidate tried to make less visible his being a member of PCRM, he used to say 'our, my team', not 'the PCRM team'. It prooved rather convincing especially for the less educated Moldovans, who started to get disappointed in the ruling coalition of parties (AIE), and wanted a change for more prosperity instead of so many political talk-shows.

The Communists invested the most money in their attempt to win the Chisinau mayor office, compared to the other three parties (PLDM, PDM and PL), which made the Alliance for European Integration (AIE)later last year. The Democratic Party (PD) supported Dorin Chirtoaca in the second round, as the Liberal Democratic Party (PLDM) withdrew the candidate it had fielded before the first round and supported the Liberal candidate instead. The PLDM explained it had done so in order not to allow the PCRM candidate to win in the first round.

It's very important to notice that the Russian (!) Foreign Ministry issued a note after the first round, pretending there was too much fraud against Dodon and that the OSCE observers were not keen enough to report the irregularities. A group of priests from the Moldovan metropolitan church, subordinated to the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate, made sure to call the press to shoot their meeting with the PCRM candidate, at which, they said, they gave him a note of expectations they have from a Chisinau mayor. They did not meet with Dorin Chirtoaca.

In these Moldovan elections, the Kremlin deployed all its tools in order to have its protege win the Moldovan capital, but the pro-Western alliance of parties resisted the pressure. Out of almost a thousand mayor offices in the country, PLDM gained almost a third, the PD -- fewer, but more than the Communists, and the Liberals -- less than 100. The pro-Western message of the ruling coallition seems to have echoed in the Moldovans' hearts, this may be one conclusion of these local elections in Moldova. The second is that Russia is the only country so openly interfering into the Moldovan politics. The loss of the Moldovan capital city seems to overturn the Kremlin's plans an there was a lot of talking geo-politics in these local elections, as it is in any Moldovan election.

The suburbs were included into the Chisinau municipality back in the early 90s by the historians and writers of the first democratically elected parliament of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldavia. Ever since the suburbs have demonstrated the wit of that move.