WPS Agency, Russia
May 22 2009
END OF COLOR
by Valery Vyzhutovich
EFFORTS TO EXPORT DEMOCRACY INTO POST-SOVIET COUNTRIES PROVED
POLITICALLY UNREWARDING; An update on Moldova.
Installation of the new administration of Moldova, a process that
began with mass disturbances, reentered legitimate channels. It is
about to be completed. Moldovan legislators elected chairman of the
national parliament. He is Communist leader Vladimir Voronin, acting
head of state. Election of the new president is on the agenda now. The
first effort to do so failed. The opposition refrained from voting and
the Communists found themselves short of one vote or they would have
installed their president already. The next election will take place
on May 28 but the opposition persists and promises to boycott it,
too. Another failure to have the head of state elected will
necessitate a snap parliamentary election in Moldova. Actually, this
turn of events is unlikely. Odds are that the Communists will make
their political adversaries an offer they won’t be able to turn down.
In a word, Moldova is about to start a new political cycle. This
political cycle promises no upheavals on a major scale. Even the rift
in society is not nearly as broad as one could infer from the April
events in Kishinev. Yes, there are radical youths irresistibly
attracted to Romania. It never occurs to them that Romania itself,
EU’s backwater province as it is, is not exactly in a hurry to embrace
Moldova. They want Romania and that is that. Anyway, most in Moldova
in the meantime (mature city dwellers and villagers) consider
themselves Moldovans and entertain no heady notions of reunification
with Romania. It is these people that the new president will rely
on. Whoever he or she is does not really matter. All of Moldova knows
that Voronin will remain in charge – both as chairman of the
parliament and leader of the ruling party.
In short, Voronin is going to accept a new position and remain the
central figure in Moldovan politics. Moscow has no objections to this
development. No other politician in Moldova can match Voronin’s
ability to be pro-Russian and promote interests of his own country all
at the same time. Also importantly, Voronin himself evolved from what
he used to be once. A Communist by origin, he is smart enough to
listen to European structures. Not even his pro-European policy is a
hurdle for the relations with Moscow. Sure, there was a period when
the Moldovan-Russian dialogue was compromised. There was a period when
Moldova was rapidly drifting away… These several years of mutual
repulsion are over now, and Moscow and Kishinev find themselves on one
and the same wavelength more and more frequently. When pro-Romanian
youths were running rampant in Kishinev, Voronin appealed for support
to the Western community and called Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow whom he
found a
sympathetic and supporting listener.
No need to overestimate importance of Moldova for Russia. Russia lacks
any strategic interests in this country. Where economic interests are
concerned, they are paltry because wines and agricultural products are
all Moldova has to offer. It is its central part in Trans-Dniester
region conflict settlement that Russia goes out of its way to
retain. Russia wants to convince the international community of its
own ability to settle conflicts in the post-Soviet zone, and
settlement of the conflict between Kishinev and Tiraspol will be a
perfect way to make this point. Unfortunately, the Trans-Dniester
region keeps insisting on two options only – either independence or
membership in Russia. That it will be given neither goes without
saying. Promotion of its interests in the dialogue with Moldova is all
Russia can do for the Trans-Dniester region. Actually, certain
progress in this process was reported not long ago. Leaders of Russia,
Moldova, and
self-proclaimed Trans-Dniester Moldovan Republic signed a joint
declaration which stands for transformation of the Russian
peacekeeping on the Dniester into a peace-enforcement mission under
the OSCE aegis. It is one of the factors explaining why no involved
party (Kishinev, Tiraspol, Moscow, or Europe) needs radical changes in
the upper echelons of the Moldovan state.
Also importantly, no serious changes are expected in the team of
Moldovan negotiators involved in the talks over the Russian contingent
in the Trans-Dniester region. Moscow’s stand on the matter is known:
the contingent will be withdrawn only when all of the military
hardware has been retrieved from the region. The matter concerns about
20,000 tons of ordnance and munitions. Even uninterrupted
transportation meanwhile (a sheer impossibility in itself) will take
at least three years, according to experts.
Anyway, there is certainly more to the matter than the necessity to
guard army depots. Russia would like to retain its clout with the
Trans-Dniester region, that much is clear. Moscow remembers that there
are 100,000 Russians in the Trans-Dniester region and never permits
Kishinev to forget it either. Should something happen again (the way
it did in 1992), it is to Russia that refugees will stampede. No
wonder Russia wants stability in the region.
Grotesque protests in Moldova, pointless and fruitless as they were,
put an end to the era of the so called color revolutions. The era when
all elections inevitably included two rounds. The first round then
involved actual voting, the second came down to abolition of the
outcome of the first round through mass disturbances. It was so in
Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan where regimes were toppled by the
mobs inspired and guided by the opposition. It was so in Armenia too,
a bloody afterword to the presidential race. And why did the
opposition carry the day in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan but not
in Armenia? All things considered, there is one nuance analysts
usually miss. In Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, the opposition was
greatly encouraged by the position of OSCE and Council of Europe
observers who had dismissed the previous election as rigged. In
Armenia, however, European observers logged no serious violations and
thus prevented protesters
from appealing to anyone abroad. Aware of this lack of international
support, the Armenian opposition knew that it was licked – at least
for the time being.
And neither did the Moldovan opposition receive this external
support. Representatives of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly wasted no
time proclaiming the parliamentary election up to international
standards.
Europe is no longer willing to barter stability near its own borders
for purity of elections in Armenia or Moldova. By and large, the era
of color revolutions is over because efforts to export revolution into
post-Soviet countries proved politically unrewarding. The West was
hailing orange revolution and revolution of the roses several years
ago. What it sees in Ukraine and Georgia these days makes it bitterly
disappointed.
There will be no second round of elections (of the kind discussed
here) in nearby countries in the future.
Source: Rossiiskaya Gazeta, No 92, May 22, 2009, p. 3