And if anyone asks, that’s what the opposition has dubbed the revolution they are hoping for, due to Moldova’s vineyards. Elections are being held in Moldova today. In a nutshell, the parliament will be elected, and then the parliament will elect the president.

Background
But this election is much more complicated than meets the eye. The current president, Vladimir Voronin, is a communist. This is not so rare, except that he is leaning toward the EU and away from Moscow.

Prague, 4 March 2005 (RFE/RL) — The Communist Party of president Vladimir Voronin is heavily favored to retain its strong majority in parliament.

The party now holds 71 of the chamber’s 101 seats.

Kirill Koktysh, an analyst with the Moscow Institute of International Relations, says Voronin’s party may lose some support but points out there are few strong rivals to challenge it.

(INSERT AUDIO — Koktysh in Russian — NC030432)
“ÄVoroninÅ has a good chance to stay in power simply because his success depends on the ability of the society to mobilize protests Äand the society is not able to do thisÅ,” Koktysh says.

Opinion polls give the Communists about 50 percent of the vote, with each of the two biggest opposition parties — the Democratic Moldova bloc and the People’s Christian Democrats — holding about 15 percent each. The barrier for entering parliament is 6 percent of the vote, and higher for blocs of two or more parties.

To become president, a candidate must win at least 60 percent of the vote in parliament. It’s not certain that any party will be able to garner enough support to ensure their candidate victory in the first round.

It’s also unclear what a victory for the Communists might mean in terms of the country’s foreign policy.

The Communists won in 2001 on a promise to raise living standards, and Voronin also promised to improve ties with Moscow.

But in 2003 he broke with Moscow over the issue of Transdniester, accusing Russia of trying to prolong the breakaway conflict. Voronin has since embraced the idea of closer links with the European Union.

Koktysh says Voronin is walking what he calls a “zig-zag” line between Russia and the EU, and currently lacks strong support in either Moscow or Brussels.

Voronin has also recently met with both Presidents Sakaashvili of Georgia and Yushchenko of Ukraine.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was due to pay an impromptu visit to Moldova on 2 March, just four days before legislative elections in that former Soviet republic. Saakashvili is expected to discuss regional security, and one of his stated goals is to express solidarity with Moldovans in what he called “their struggle for democracy.” But the timing suggests the effect might be to bolster Moldova’s ability to settle its separatist conflicts without interference from Moscow.

Prague, 2 March 2005 (RFE/RL) — Saakashvili’s plans to visit Moldova on his way to Italy were made public on 1 March, just one day after he received an invitation from Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin.

Georgian National Security Council Secretary Gela Bezhuashvili told reporters that Saakashvili’s visit is aimed — among other things — at discussing the future of GUUAM, a regional security forum that comprises the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova.

Bezhuashvili said the need to redefine the goal of the organization stems from recent political changes in Ukraine and Georgia following what became known as the Orange and Rose revolutions.

“Bilateral issues will be discussed. I also think GUUAM will be an important topic of discussion. GUUAM needs a new model, a new mission, and new functions,” Bezhuashvili said. “Since the Rose Revolution and the Orange Revolution, its functions and purpose have changed. As I said earlier today, GUUAM should now be an organization that determines the development of democracy in the post-Soviet area.”

GUUAM was founded in 1997 in Strasbourg by the presidents of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova. Uzbekistan joined two years later.

The grouping was originally designed as a political, economic, and security alliance meant to strengthen the independence and sovereignty of its founding members against Russia with a strong focus on energy issues. Yet, U.S. encouragement aside, the organization never really achieved its objectives and has primarily remained a discussion forum with little leverage on regional strategic developments.

Ukraine’s new president, Viktor Yushchenko, on 1 March reportedly offered to revive the organization during a meeting with visiting Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli.

The future of GUUAM was also among topics discussed during consultations between Yushchenko and his Moldovan counterpart later the same day.

Voronin on 1 March made a surprise visit to Kyiv, officially to review regional issues and Ukraine’s mediation efforts between Moldova and its Russian-speaking separatist region of Transdniester.

Poor communists aren’t wanted by Europe, and don’t want Russia very much themselves, so they’re seeking allegience with the eastern European states. But I think it is more political than that. In Ukraine, the Orange Revolution was able to spring forth because of several things, one of them being Russia’s interference in the elections. To keep power, Voronin needs to distance himself as much as possible from things that look corrupt in the eyes of the people so that the already fragmented opposition has nothing to unite on. Take a look at this article.

Moldovan authorities accused the Russians of aiming to disrupt Sunday’s voting. The Russians said they are election observers.

The group was stopped at the border while traveling to Moldova by train. They are expected to be sent back to Russia in the coming hours.

The Russian embassy in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, demanded an explanation and sent two staff members to the station to meet with the Russian group.

Reports said a Belarusian group was also forced to leave Moldova late yesterday, the same day they arrived by train. Tomorrow, Moldovans choose deputies for its parliament, which will then elect a president.

Chisinau accuses Russia, which tacitly supports separatists in Moldova’s breakaway Transdniester region, of trying to destabilize the situation ahead of the vote.

You may recall that Russia announced a new foreign policy saying that it is willing to establish backing of opposition parties against current regimes, as opposed to simply supporting what ever regime is in power. This has profound implications for this election. While the current regime is communist and leaning west, the opposition is democratic and leaning toward Moscow. It’s so oxymoronic that it’s hard to decipher, given the implications of what would happen if the opposition came to power. More about the opposition.

The opposition says it is hoping for an Orange Revolution, similar to what happened recently in neighboring Ukraine. One of the parties, the Christian Democrats, has adopted orange as its party color, with the other main opposition party choosing yellow.

Voronin in recent days has appeared to try to diminish this possibility by casting himself in the role of reformer. In the past week, he’s traveled to Kyiv to meet with new Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko and received visiting Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, leader of Georgia’s Rose Revolution.

Reports say the Kremlin might be backing one of the opposition parties, the Democratic Moldova bloc led by Serafim Urechean.

The opposition has accused the Communists of using all means to stick to power. Urechean said recently the authorities “are unscrupulously using administrative resources and the state media” to promote the ruling party.

The Christian Democrats have already secured official permission to organize “meetings with the electorate” in the capital Chisinau for two weeks after polling day. However, Koktysh says he does not believe that the opposition parties can seriously challenge the political system.

He says the opposition has failed to coordinate it actions and mentioned some reasons for its lack of unity.

“It might have been possible Äfor the oppositionÅ to unite if Voronin was such a dictator as ÄAlyaksandrÅ Lukashenka but this isn’t the case. It was also possible to unite in the name of some future vision of Moldova, but in this case you need an industrial society Änot an agrarian one as in MoldovaÅ,” Koktysh says.

The election is being watched closely in the West — not just for who wins but how the vote is conducted.

The Russian Central Election Commission was also not invited to oversee the elections.

Moldova is one of the smallest countries in Europe, as well as the poorest. The communist party has obviously not lived up to its promises of considerably raising the standard of living. The vote is expected to be rigged, and people are beginning to get fed up. At this point, the hasty west-leaning foreign policy is just a guise that says the communists want an authoritarian state in which Putin is not involved. And Moscow backing for the democrats doesn’t mean that Moscow controls them either.

Honestly, this one makes my head hurt. Here is a good article to read, and here is a really good one that I highly enjoyed reading due to the insight. Lyndon Allin has a lots of links as well.

Elections
Alright, now that all of that is over, we can concentrate on the actual events of the day. The mainstream media doesn’t have much at the moment. One thing I’m going to be look at with particular interest is the results of the exit polls, a first in Moldova. As one of the articles I linked to states, real support for the communist party may be less than ten percent. Because of the expected vote rigging, if the results differ too much from the exit polls, then we might actually see a grape revolution.

I can’t exactly read any of this, so feel free to translate it if any of you can, but this blog seems to be talking about the events in Moldova a lot. Despite not being in English, there are some pictures which are interesting to look at. Wish I could read it.

UPDATE: Communists get the lead in the exit polls.

In Moldova’s parliamentary elections, opinion polls predict the ruling pro-Western Communists will retain power, an outcome that is likely to receive a cool reception from Moldova’s largest neighbor, Russia.

Fifteen parties and alliances are competing for 101 seats in parliament, which would be responsible for choosing a president later this year.

The polls are closed, and judging by the exit polls, the communists are supposed to win. There already seem to be some problems noted, here and here.

on-governmental public organization Coalition-2005 published a list of violations that occurred, in its opinion, during the parliamentary elections in Moldova on Sunday morning.

The document obtained by RIA Novosti mentions 23 instances of violation. In particular, it points out at the absence of passport numbers in ballots, and the instances when election officials omitted stamping voters’ passports with “votat” (voted) stamp, as the rules set by the Central Election Committee prescribe.

There were some instances of election propaganda and sales of alcohol at the polls. On several occasions two people were allowed in election booths simultaneously, the document claims.

Akhmed Bilalov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma committee for CIS affairs and relations with compatriots and PACE observer, has pointed to a number of violations in Moldovan parliament elections.

“We have visited two constituencies. Some ballot boxes were not sealed, besides pollers got their passports stamped. We believe them to be serious violations, because Moldovan legislation does not suppose such norms,” the official was quoted as saying on the phone.

The MP also emphasized on the fact that polling stations were poorly arranged. Moreover, residents of Transdniestria had to go to the Moldovan territory to cast their votes.

This is relatively preliminary and only based on two persons’ reports. Keep in mind that the government used its power to hamper opposition press and promote itself through state media. The real fun won’t begin until the votes are counted, and the opposition is planning rallies for Monday.

“If we discover irregularities, we will defend the result against falsification,” said Iurie Rosca, head of the Christian Democrats, who plan to organise a mass rally on Monday.

We’ll have to wait to see how that turns out. I’ll continue to update this post as I hear more and as the protests start. The opposition may be able to pull it off, but the energy and ground to stand on don’t seem to be readily apparent at the moment.

UPDATE: Here is an article on RFE/RL expressing my similar views on this situation. Read it all.