The political atmosphere is currently heightened in Tiraspol. The executive and the legislative branch of government are bitterly struggling for power ahead of presidential elections in coming December. The current president Evgeny Shevchouk is rather in the defensive position while the republican parliament, the Supreme Council, tries to use every occasion to attack him in the public.
Both legal and back-door methods are applied. Parliamentary sessions are often structured as blackening campaigns against the president and the government. They are accused of withdrawal of state companies’ financial assets through intermediator firms and herewith prejudicing to state budget to the extent of hundreds of million dollars. The other story is about the government which is allegedly guilty of impediments in paying pensions and salaries occurred in 2015. The executive is practically blamed on all fronts and policy issues, so that the laws initiated by the president are usually blocked by the legislative. The TV-Channel TSV produces video films in which the citizens are manipulated in favor of the parliament’s position.
In order to attack Shevchouk personally a press-conference was recently organized at the information agency Rosbalt in Moscow. During this event the former representative of Transnistrian Investigation Committee A. Harichkov told the media that only through the intermediator firm Energokapital the Transnistrian leader traced 19 million dollars to an offshore. The second case of pure political technology was arranged when a quite new web-site “Russian Weekleaks” published on June 27 allegedly a plan of Shevchouk’s advisers to sabotage the presidential elections, to discredit the parliamentary majority and the almighty firm Sheriff standing behind it. Not to forget is about a survey made by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center unexpectedly and for the first time actually on the Transnistrian territory: it argues that 24 % of the Transnistrian electorate would vote for the chairman of the Supreme Council at the coming presidential elections and only 11 % – for Shevchouk, while the unpopularity rating of the latter amounts to 50 %.
The president and the government try to respond calmly stating that the parliament has already begun the election campaign. They use the media resources which are under their control to defend own position and to slightly attack the opponent. The main motive is a “struggle with the monopolist” (Sheriff) who is allegedly trying to gain political control over the republic having the dominating party “Obnovlenie” fully at its own disposal. The State Customs Committee loyal to the president recently made a film about this company accusing it of misusing the status of “special importer” in 2006-2011 while being at the same time a monopolist on Transnistrian market of food, tobacco and fuel. The authors of the film argued that due to the president Shevchouk’s decision to cancel Sheriff’s special status the company paid in 2012-2016 7 times more customs duties than in the previous period. Besides, the film accuses Sheriff even of active smuggling with chicken legs and tobacco before 2011 referring to the fact that the company imported far bigger amounts of these commodities than needed by the whole Transnistrian population and that’s why undermined the republic’s image. So, the authors of the film decided to recognize smuggling from Transnistria (even if it existed earlier) only to damage the internal rival.
What is the genuine cause of this political struggle? The first evidence of the conflict emerged in 2013 when the government decided to increase internal gas prices by 70 % what dealt a major blow lo local industry, including that under the Sheriff’s control (textile company Tirotex, alcohol producer KVINT etc.). The Supreme Council insisted that time to increase the prices by 17 %, but the government refused to listen to arguments and soon was enforced to turn back the gas price because of the suspension of production by many national companies. In 2015 the president proposed to introduce an “offshore duty” which firstly amounted to 10 %, than to 3 % and at the end it was abolished in May 2016. Now in the context of the currency crisis the government tries to impose the decision on the economic agents to sell 100 % of their foreign currency assets to the state (while now it is 25 %).
So, the executive has undertaken many attempts to enforce the key economic agents to fill in the state budget. It was usually done with reference to Russia: for example, gas prices were increased because Transnistria had allegedly to pay to Gazprom, offshore duties were discussed because of President Putin’s appeal to de-offshorize the economy. On one side, fiscal motivation of the president is understandable. The Transnistrian budget used to have a huge deficit, so to have a stable budget would be a good thing because of many reasons. Besides, Russia transferred the last payment for macrofinancial assistance in 2012, so since that time Tiraspol has not seen hard cash from Moscow (the so called humanitarian assistance which comes to Transnistria annually from Russia is meant only for paying a small addition to pensions). The requests of assistance which Shevchouk has made during his visits to Moscow in 2014-2015 were rejected. On the other side, the changes were usually undertaken abruptly, without giving a chance to the economy to adjust. Both sides (the government and economic agents) failed to negotiate on how to balance the fiscal interest of the state and the economic development. Due to government’s decisions to increase import duties and other taxes the fiscal burden on economy increased from 23,6 % (2009) to 34,5 % (2013) of GDP (just to compare: 24,1 % in Russia if not to consider taxation of energy resources, 25 % in the US and 31 % in Moldova). The other governmental measures have now the potential only to speed up the negative fiscal dynamic. Not to forget is about gas prices which are a key factor for the Transnistrian economy because due to the lack of investments it does not have resources to care about energy efficiency.
Both political camps have a very high rating of unpopularity in Transnistria. Sheriff and Obnovlenie are associated with oligarchic politics. The popularity of Evgeny Shevchouk decreased dramatically first of all because of a severe economic crisis in the break-away republic. Besides, neither the executive nor the legislative has enough resources to defeat the opponent. That’s why they are actively appealing for the Russian attention remembering Moscow’s activities at the level of high-ranking officials to prevent Igor Smirnov from staying in power in 2011. Now there are constantly two Transnistrian delegations coming to Moscow: that of the Supreme Council and of the President. Besides, these delegations work separately from each other but always almost in the same time. It was the case in February and June this year.
While being in Moscow in February, the delegation of the Supreme Council tried to contradistinguish itself to Shevchouk and look like a constructive political power which came not to ask for financial assistance but to propose initiatives to improve socioeconomic situation in Transnistria, also due to recovering the trade turnover with Russia (which decreased because of currency devaluation in Russia and existing ban on Moldovan import to Russia embracing the Transnistrian export as well). The second motive of the visit was to inform the Russian decision-makers about real causes of the economic crisis in Transnistria – inadequate tax, budgetary and economic policies of the Transnistrian government. During its second visit to Moscow the parliamentary delegation participated in various events organized on the platform of the party “United Russia” and the State Duma and talked to Russian officials, also in the Administration of the Russian President.
Evgeny Shevchouk used to meet both in February and June with Dmitry Rogozin, special representative of the Russian President on Transnistria. Last time he agreed with the Russian deputy prime-minister to involve Russian specialists in the resolution of the currency crisis in Transnistria. The media shared the information that this expert circle includes specialists of the Russian Central Bank and Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Service. Obviously, the Transnistrian leader is determined to use them as a mediation force in his conflict with the Supreme Council. On the other side, it should be stressed that in such a way Evgeny Shevchouk seems not to be afraid of external audit.
But in general it can be argued that Russia abstains from interfering into the Transnistrian politics keeping the status of the observer. The main reason for that is Moscow’s cautious attitude to both political camps. The Supreme Council is directly associated first of all with the internationalized oligarchic business group having interests in Moldova, Ukraine and the EU. Besides, the current leadership of the Party Obnovlenie is affiliated with people from the old Smirnov’s guard who seems to be negatively seen in Moscow (here the personality of V. Antyufeev should be mentioned). If to speak about Evgeny Shevchouk, he has not managed yet to get rid of the image of a politician who won the elections unexpectedly in 2011 after the Kremlin decided to rely on another politician. Besides, Shevchouk asked many times for Russian financial assistance what of course should have irritated the Russian officials. On the other side, Russia seems not to be intended to block fully by all means any political camp in Transnistria because of some reasons.
It is very symbolic that after Smirnov was accused of plundering the Russian humanitarian assistance, Moscow began to transfer it to a special account of the Supreme Council. But last years the assistance is transferred to an account in the Transnistrian Central Bank. It shows how demonstratively Russia prevents any political force in Tiraspol to score points on Russian factor.
Consequently, Moscow will eventually further abstain from playing actively in the Transnistrian internal political game. The main interest of Russia is political stability on the left bank of Nistru river. That’s why Moscow will definitely appeal to both political camps to remain on the legal terrain and organize relatively fair elections in December. But it does not mean that political technologists from Moscow will not have in coming months any opportunity to make money in the election campaign in Tiraspol.