Moldova’s constitutional referendum, held on September 5, has failed due to lacking a quorum, with only 29 percent voter turnout (Moldpres, September 6). The failure has triggered a full-blown crisis of legitimacy for the political system in general and the governing authorities in particular. The... MORE

The crash of Moldova’s experiment with a parliamentary system of government (EDM, August 6), predictable though it was, could not have occurred at a worse time for the country. When this experiment had first collapsed in 2000, Moldova still had a margin for error at... MORE

Serially recurring and failing parliamentary and presidential elections have fed rivalries within Moldova’s governing Alliance for European Integration (AEI). The upcoming constitutional referendum on September 5, to be followed by new general elections, can only bring the AEI closer to its end.The four parties had... MORE

Moldova is headed for a constitutional referendum on September 5, to be followed by yet another round of double elections, parliamentary and presidential. It will be the third round of double elections (or fourth electoral round, counting the referendum) in just 19 months. Intractable rivalries... MORE

Moldova’s governing Alliance for European Integration (AEI) has split yet again, this time over a historical assessment of Soviet rule and Communism in Moldova. On June 28, leaders of three parties, out of the AEI’s four, cancelled literally at the last minute the Parliament’s session... MORE

On June 24, Moldova’s interim president Mihai Ghimpu issued a decree instituting June 28 as the Day of Remembrance of the Soviet Occupation—an event that occurred on June 28, 1940 in what was then Bessarabia, a part of Romania. The decree does not mention Romania... MORE

Abolishing the EU’s Special Representative posts in Moldova and South Caucasus, as proposed, would look like de-prioritizing the solution of frozen conflicts, and the European neighborhood’s security (“The EU’s Declaration of Impotence,” RFE/RL, June 2).Since their inception in 2003 and 2005, respectively, these posts are... MORE

The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, has proposed abolishing the posts of EU Special Representative for Moldova and for the South Caucasus region, the scenes of “frozen” conflicts in the EU’s neighborhood. Scrapping the two posts would reduce the... MORE

In 2008, Russia “unfroze” the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia through outright war and occupation of these Georgian territories. In the latter part of 2009, the United States and Russia each accelerated negotiations on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, each pressing for some kind of quick... MORE