Kishinev Parliament’s decision to modify the Constitution in order to grant greater power to the legislative marks a new stage in the relations between this institution and the presidency, but also a historical moment in Moldova’s political evolution.
President Petru Lucinschi has come up in his turn with a proposition intended to change the fundamental law, a proposition which he has supported for many years and which would turn Moldova into a presidential republic. However, following Wednesday’s vote, the chances this proposition has to be approved have sensibly diminished. After several modifications, he presented this initiative at the end of last week. On the whole, it stipulates that the president should exert executive power, the head of the state having the possibility to get involved much more dynamically in the activity of the other institutions of the state.
Another project refers to giving more prerogatives to the Government. This initiative has already received the approval of the Constitutional Court and it is on Parliament’s agenda.
Disputes concerning changes within the main state institutions have occurred nine years after the independent republic was born and prove the necessity of a renewal in this former Soviet dominion’s political life.
A society born from the ashes of the soviets
The main state institutions of Moldova were created on the structures of the former Moldavian Socialist Republic and they became legitimate along with the process of changes initiated by the Declaration of independence of August 27, 1991. The presidential institution was legally created in September 1990, its attributions being afterwards confirmed by the Constitution of 1994, which attested the foundation of a half-presidential republic.
The head of state guarantees “equal rights” and “respect towards the Constitution.” He has to secure the country’s sovereignty and to represent it in “international contacts.” The fundamental law gives him a symbolic role, nevertheless. He can offer decorations and honour distinctions, he grants individual absolution, assures achievement of foreign and domestic policies and exerts general coordination of public administration. The President is the supreme army commander but he has specific attributions only under clearly specified situations.
The Government does not report to the President but to the legislative. In fact, Parliament represents the principal power centre. According to the Constitution, the Legislative is “the representative organism of the people from the Republic of Moldova and the only legislative authority of the state”.
The evolution of political life in Moldova led to serious conflicts between the Parliament and the President. When the latter felt that he was losing control over the legislative, that he could no longer lead parties to the directions he thought of as favourable, the president started making pressures and suggested to public opinion the idea of enforcing the presidential institution. Thus, Lucinschi pleaded for going back to the situation prior to the adoption of the Constitution, when, due to lack of clear ideologic delimitation from the soviet past, a strong presidential institution was immediately accepted for a short period of time. Meanwhile things have changed and political parties’ leaders – who have been in a permanent Brownian movement of coalitions and alliances – accept the president’s involvement less easily.
Presidential electoral dilemmas
Petru Lucinschi did not hesitate when he had to use some of the many political parties, of which several appeared just before presidential elections of 1996 in order to support Lucinschi. Another strategy was to divide parties and to promote independent candidates for presidency in order to split votes in the first round and recoup them in the second one. This happened, for instance, to the Edinstvo Socialist Party which, only a few days before the elections, split into three, one of the “wings” being quickly attracted by Lucinschi. In fact, he ran in the elections as an independent candidate, in order to obtain the votes of undecided electors.
Lucinschi’s intention to enforce his own power is related to the fact that the current president has only six months left of the actual mandate but he is very likely to run for another one.
Under these circumstances, larger prerogatives would give him the opportunity to arrange certain electoral games, without taking into account the points of view expressed by other political parties, who often proved to be hostile to the president. A weak Parliament, affected by political conflicts might have been more opened to decisions imposed from the outside and might have paved Lucinschi’s way to a new mandate. The image of a powerful president, reminding of former Soviet doctrines’ guards, would have a great impact on a population that fights daily poverty. Besides, many polls conducted at Kishinev show that people expect an authoritative “master” to put an end to sterile conflicts between parties.
To what extent could Petru Lucinschi apply programmes aimed at diminishing corruption and at improving the life of the population, that is a different story. Over the past years, the country has been facing serious economic problems, enhanced by Ukraine and the Russian Federation’s attitude, which both did their best to limit Moldova’s power of decision. Reforms were slow, the population’s incomes diminished month after month, while salary payment was sometimes delayed by more than six months. This situation allowed leftist parties, namely the communists, to register rapid evolution and conquer an important segment of the political life.
Leaving the “perestroika” behind
The decision made by Parliament currently represents Lucinschi’s defeat. Now he can only look for backstage strategies in order to influence political life, by creating lobby groups and by getting close to influent Kishinev politicians. He may also use foreign connections, counting above all on the support of the “big brother” from Moscow. The new president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin has already visited his counterpart in Kishinev, in an attempt to find a solution to the problem of the break-away republic of Dnestr and reshape bilateral relations. Lucinschi has always enjoyed good contacts with Russian officials, starting with political and economical representatives such as Gennadi Selezniov, to patriarch Alexei II of Russia. Moreover, Lucinschi has a biography that can win the trust of any Moscow representative. Worker with responsibilities within the central committee of the communist party in Tajikistan (PCUS), prime secretary within the Communist Party of Moldova, then central committee’s secretary within PCUS, Lucinschi has tried to convert to democracy and pluralism and assume the position of the president in an autonomous republic.
It is still difficult to find out how sincere his desire was and how much he managed to leave behind perestroika-like policies.