MINELRES: Declaration Against the Planned Federalization of Moldova
MINELRES moderator
[email protected]
Tue Jul 30 18:11:11 2002
Original sender: Ionas Aurelian Rus <[email protected]>
Dear Sir,
This is the text of a statement written on July 16, 2002 against the
federalization of the Republic of Moldova written by me and also
signed by others until yesterday, July 18 (see
http://yam.ro/forum/read.php?f=3&i=10312&t=10131). In other words,
among other things, it is our intention to indicate that we deplore
the OSCE proposal for the federalization of the country. The process
of collecting signatures is ongoing, and it is very likely that a much
more concise, broad text would soon be written so that it would be
signed by large numbers of individuals. In all likelihood, the OSCE
Mission in Chisinau, other OSCE bodies, various members of the U.S.
Congress, will receive the texts or the internet addresses of the
various statements and signature updates. We would appreciate it if
you would send us the confirmation that you have received this text.
All the best,
Ionas Aurelian Rus
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Political Science,
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901
United States of America
[email protected]
Declaration Against the Planned Federalization of the Republic of
Moldova
We, the signers of this declaration, would like to express our
disapproval toward the idea of the federalization of the Republic of
Moldova. Some of our main arguments are related to public opinion and
electoral results. A majority of the population of the areas under the
control of the government of the Republic of Moldova would prefer a
more centralized form of government than the proposed federation. In
addition, federalization is against the program of the ruling
Communist Party of the Republic of Moldova, whose leader, President
Vladimir Voronin, has recently endorsed the idea of federalization.
Moreover, federalization would be unconstitutional. On issues such as
the one discussed in this declaration, the constitution may only be
revised through a referendum in which a majority of the registered
voters of the Republic of Moldova would participate. Finally, we
believe that the attempt to push through the federalization plan in
the current context is likely to destabilize the situation, possibly
to a level unprecedented in the history of post-Soviet Moldova.
The first argument against the federalization of the Republic of
Moldova is the opposition of public opinion. The evidence that a large
majority of the population of Moldova has been opposed to the
transformation of Transnistria into a federal unit of Moldova since
the Transnistrian conflict of 1992 comes from a large number of
opinion polls. The first such poll was conducted in June and July 1992
within the part of the Republic of Moldova that was not under the
control of the Transnistrian secessionist authorities by Professor
William Crowther of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro,
the author of the country study on Moldova in the prestigious series
of country studies of the largest and most prestigious library in the
world, the Library of Congress [Helen Fedor, Belarus and Moldova:
Country Studies, (Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, c1995)]. The
survey was funded by the National Council for Soviet and East European
Research, with the support of the Duke University Center for East West
Trade, Communication and Investment. (For more details, see Professor
Crowther's unpublished manuscript, "The Construction of Moldovan
National Consciousness".) The survey was administered by the personnel
of the Institutes of Ethnography and Sociology of the Academy of
Sciences of the Republic of Moldova and by the National Institute of
Sociology of Moldova. The results may be found in various published
scholarly articles and manuscripts.
The data presented below comes from William Crowther, "Nationalism and
Political Transformation in Moldova", in Donald L. Dyer (ed.), STUDIES
IN MOLDOVAN: THE HISTORY, CULTURE, LANGUAGE AND CONTEMPORARY POLITICS
OF THE PEOPLE OF MOLDOVA, (East European Monographs, Boulder, 1996).
About 81.6% of all the ethnic Moldovans/Romanians (who represented
70.3% of the polling sample) desired the area to remain a part of the
Republic of Moldova in comparison to 6.8% who desired the
federalization of the country and 4.2% who favored Transnistrian
independence. Among ethnic Ukrainians (12.2%), the figures were 46.0%,
27.9% and 10.6%, while among ethnic Russians (10.8%), the numbers were
45.6%, 30.8% and 8.3%. See Crowther, "Nationalism and Political
Transformation", p. 40, 46 (table), 49 as well as William Crowther,
"Ethnic Politics and the Post-Communist Transition in Moldova", in
Nationalities Papers, vol. 26, no. 1, March 1998, p. 161. The
overwhelming majority of the inhabitants desired arrangements in which
the Moldovan state would be more centralized than a federal state.
A very similar picture is provided by a more recent poll, conducted in
late April 2000 by Vladimir Kolosov and Dmitriy Zayats with the
collaboration of Luminita Drumea of Chisinau as well as N. G.
Babilunga of Tiraspol. See the text of the article in Russian at
http://www.ist.md/index.asp?doc=1_3&doctree=1_3_7_2_4, at the website
of the Institute of Social Technologies, partially in English at
http://www.yam.ro/forum/read.php?f=3&i=10078&t=9868 and in Romanian at
http://www.yam.ro/forum/read.php?f=3&i=10079&t=9868. Only 7% of the
population of the area controlled by the Moldovan authorities believed
that Moldova and Transnistria should be joined together in a
confederation and 11.9% desired that Moldova should become a
federation of equal members. By contrast, 30.8% of the population
believed that Transnistria should get a great deal of autonomy within
Moldova, whereas 18.3%, including almost one-third of the ethnic
Moldovans/Romanians, thought that Transnistria should form a number of
regular counties within Moldova which should not benefit from any
autonomy. The rest did not believe that the resolution of the
Transnistrian conflict would be possible in the near future. Their
lack of faith in the prospects for peace might be based on their
realization that union on their terms (apparently almost always a
preference for a unitary Republic of Moldova) would not be accepted by
the other parties involved in the negotiations.
This latter scenario is suggested by another opinion poll conducted by
the Institute of Social Technologies ( http://ist.ist.md/ ) between 10
and 12 November 2001 in the city of Chisinau, the capital of the
Republic of Moldova (see
http://www.yam.ro/forum/read.php?f=3&i=10129&t=9868 and
http://www.yam.ro/forum/read.php?f=3&i=10130&t=9868 ). Even though the
Moldovans represented only 55.07% of the population of the city,
48.25% of its inhabitants believed that Transnistria should be an
administrative territorial unit within the Republic of Moldova, while
18.47% of the population believed that Transnistria should be an
autonomous unit within the Republic of Moldova. By contrast, 17.80% of
the population believed that Moldova and the Dniester Moldovan
Republic/Transnistria should be "equal subjects of a unitary state
(federation)" and only 2.83% of the population believed that the two
entities should be sovereign, independent states. The other
inhabitants thought that it would be difficult to provide an answer,
did not know or did not respond.
President Voronin has recently endorsed the idea of the federalization
of the Republic of Moldova, and has praised the preliminary
federalization plan proposed by the OSCE Mission in Chisinau (see
http://www.yam.ro/forum/read.php?f=3&i=10219&t=10219 as well as
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eurostiri/message/284 ). It is not
legitimate to argue that the electoral victory of the Communist Party
of the Republic of Moldova in February 2001 in some sense justifies
the federalization of the Republic of Moldova. The current program of
the above-mentioned party (see its Romanian-language version at
http://www.parties.e-democracy.md/parties/pcrm/program and its
English-language version at
http://www.parties.e-democracy.md/en/parties/pcrm/program ). With this
program, the party obtained 50.07% of the valid votes during the
above-mentioned elections, states that "The party supports sovereign,
independent, one and indivisible State" (sic). [A better translation
would have been "The party pleads for a sovereign, independent,
unitary and indivisible state".]
The federalization of the country is not allowed by the constitution.
Article 1, section 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova
states, "The Republic of Moldova is a sovereign, independent, unitary
and indivisible state." See the text
http://www.ifes.md/constitution/01/01.html in English and at
http://www.ifes.md/ro/constitution/01/01.html" in Romanian.
Furthermore, article 10, section 1, states "The national unity of the
Republic of Moldova constitutes the foundation of the State. The
Republic of Moldova is the common and indivisible motherland of all
her citizens."
Any federalization plan may be implemented only after a revision of
the constitution of the Republic of Moldova. Due to the importance of
the issue, the federalization of the country may be achieved only
through a referendum in which a majority of the registered voters
participate. Article 142 states, "The provisions regarding the
sovereignty, independence and unity of the state, as well as those
regarding the permanent neutrality of the State may be revised only by
referendum based on a majority vote of registered voting citizens."
See the text in English at http://www.ifes.md/constitution/06/17.html"
and in Romanian at http://www.ifes.md/ro/constitution/06/17.html .
Keeping in mind the state of public opinion, a majority of the voters
in the country would most probably reject the federalization of the
Republic of Moldova.
Another argument against federalization is the fact that it would
negatively impact stability in the country, including by increasing
political conflict and by causing massive rallies against the plan. A
number of political parties in the Republic of Moldova have indicated
their opposition against the federalization plan. These include the
parliamentary Christian Democratic People's Party, the Social Liberal
Party, the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party of Moldova.
These parties and their predecessors (the Liberal Party has been
created through the merger of a number of parties) have obtained
22.50% of the votes in the parliamentary elections of 2001 (see
http://www.ifes.md/elections/electionresults/2001parliamentary/ in
English and
http://www.ifes.md/ro/elections/electionresults/2001parliamentary/ in
Romania). The preparations for the anti-federalization street protests
have already started (see http://www.azi.md/news?ID=19883 in Romanian
and http://www.azi.md/news?ID=19895 ).
It is quite possible that, eventually, the protests against
federalization would be the largest since the declaration of
independence of the Republic of Moldova. We should not forget the
massive demonstrations earlier this year provoked by other issues. At
that time, the positions of the demonstrators were supported by a
somewhat smaller proportion of the population and by a combination of
political parties that had obtained a slightly lower number of votes
in the same elections. Moreover, the opposition against federalization
is more evenly spread throughout the population, in the sense that
there is much more center-left and ethnic minority support for the
demands of the potential protesters. Even more importantly, the level
of support for the Communists has decreased according to opinion polls
to 32.4% of the total population (see http://www.azi.md/news?ID=19648
in Romanian and http://www.azi.md/news?ID=19657 in English ). This
figure is arguably lower than at any time since 2000, including than
during the elections of 2001, when 33.4% of the registered voters cast
their ballots for the party. Therefore, the pushing through of the
federalization plan in the current context is likely to destabilize
the situation, possibly to a level unprecedented in the history of
post-Soviet Moldova.
While we disagree with his position, we fully agree with President
Voronin's statements in the above-mentioned declaration that this plan
is unprecedented and that there is a significant level of criticism
directed against the federalization of the Republic of Moldova. We
also note that nothing in his declaration, or of anybody else's
statement in favor of the proposal, in any way contradicts the facts
documented in our declaration.
Therefore, if the constitution of the Republic of Moldova and its
democratic procedures would be followed, the federalization of the
country should not take place in the foreseeable future due to a
number of reasons, including the ones listed above. We are aware of an
official OSCE proposal for the federalization of the Republic of
Moldova, which has recently appeared in the governmental newspaper
"Moldova Suverana" on July 9, 2002. (See the full text at
http://www.yam.ro/forum/read.php?f=3&i=9811&t=9811 in Romanian, as
well as its summary at http://www.azi.md/news?ID=19806 in Romanian,
and at http://www.azi.md/news?ID=19818 in English.) We are also not
certain about the extent to which the final version would diverge from
this text. Therefore, our criticism against the proposed
federalization of the Republic of Moldova would also apply to amended
versions of the same plan that do not change its basic nature.
Therefore, we, the signers of this letter, would like to express our
opposition against the idea of the federalization of the Republic of
Moldova. Some of our main arguments are related to public opinion and
electoral politics. A majority of the population of the areas under
the control of the Republic of Moldova would prefer a more centralized
form of government. Moreover, federalization is against the program of
the ruling Communist Party of the Republic of Moldova, regardless of
the recent endorsement of the idea by its leader, President Vladimir
Voronin. Other arguments deal with constitutional issues.
Federalization would be unconstitutional. Moreover, the constitution
may only be revised through a referendum in which a majority of the
citizens of the Republic of Moldova would participate. Finally, we
believe that the attempt to push through the federalization plan in
the current context is likely to destabilize the situation, possibly
to a level unprecedented in the history of post-Soviet Moldova.
Sincerely,
1. Ionas Aurelian Rus, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States of
America, 08901-1411 (see http://polisci.rutgers.edu ), President of
the European Studies Graduate Student Association (see
http://crcees.rutgers.edu/conf2001/ and http://GSA/groups.html ),
[email protected]
2. Oleg Brega, Chisinau, R.Moldova [email protected],
www.eu.brega.org
3. Burdujan Radu, Briceni, R.Moldova, [email protected]
4. Septimiu Nechifor, Brasov, Romania,
[email protected]
5. Jardan Cristian, mun.Ungheni, R. Moldova, Cluj-Napoca, Roamania
6. Ioan Nicolescu, Canada, Email: [email protected]
7. Liviu Cananau, Kitchener, Canada, E-mail: [email protected]
8. Filip Antonio, London, UK
9. Vitalie Braniste, Chisinau, E-mail: [email protected]
10. Anatol Caslaru, [email protected]
11. Liviu B�rc�. Chi�in�u, Republica Moldova, [email protected]
12. Iulian Stefan, M�nchen, Germany