People's Democracy

ACCORDING to final elections results tabulated on February 27, communists have now come back to power in the former Soviet republic of Moldova. The result is likely to boost the morale of communists and the Left in general in all parts of the former Soviet Union and elsewhere.

It is well known that communists remain a big force in Russia and some other parts of the former USSR. But what is significant about the Moldovan elections is that here the Communist Party has won back power in the name of the once-powerful union.

During the election campaign, the Moldovan communists did not feel any need to hide their views about the union. They stand strongly for a union and, for the present, want to join a quasi-union with Russia and Belarus. The latter two have already formed a loose union between them.

Communist leader, Vladimir Voronin, who is likely to be the new Moldovan president, said during an interview on Russian television on February 26 night: "We must speak about restoration of our historical, traditional links with Russia and with other former republics of the Soviet Union….. What happened during the break-up was done without anesthetics; a live body was cut and we are suffering, and those other republics are suffering too." During his meeting with Vladimir Putin in January, Voronin had already discussed the possibility of a union between Russia and Moldova.

Voronin’s party put forward a positive programme before the voters who have been disenchanted by a decade of market reforms in a country of 4.3 million souls, often described as the poorest in Europe. The response was tremendous and even the communists were surprised over the extent of their success. According to official results, communists received 50.2 per cent of the vote in parliamentary elections held on February 25. Prime minister Dumitru Braghis’s "reform"-minded alliance came a distant second with 13.5 per cent of the votes.

There has been yet another reason of the communists’ success. Wedged between Romania and Ukraine, Moldova has been torn between its Romanian and Russian ties since 1991. A civil war was fought in the early 1990s and Russian forces remain on Moldovan soil to protect the Slavic population in the trans-Dniester region from the armed separatist groups. Voters were hopeful that, if voted to power, the communists would take concrete steps to take the country out of the morass of the perpetual conflict situation.

Voronin was quite confident during the said interview."There was a very good sign, and I think our prospect is very good," he added.