MoldovaThe 1994 Elections and Afterwards
Demonstration in front of Casa Guvernului, Chisinau
Courtesy Charles King
Campaigning for the February 27, 1994, parliamentary
elections revolved around economic reform, competing
strategies
for resolving the separatist crises, and relations with
both the
CIS and Romania. Debate on the issues of moving to a
market
economy, privatization, land reform, and foreign policy
was
polarized.
The results of the election quickly changed the course
of
Moldovan politics and stood in sharp contrast to the
results of
the 1990 election. Nationalist and pro-Romanian forces
were
rejected overwhelmingly in favor of those backing
Moldova's
independence and in favor of accommodating ethnic
minorities.
Under laws passed in preparation for the February 27,
1994,
elections, the Parliament was reduced from 380 seats to a
more
manageable 104. Fifty of these delegates were selected
from fifty
newly drawn single-member districts, and the remainder
were
elected from larger multimember districts on the basis of
proportional representation. Candidates were nominated by
voters
(independent candidates had to submit petitions with at
least
1,000 signatures), political parties, or "sociopolitical
organizations"; parties had to receive at least 4 percent
of the
vote to be accorded seats.
The Democratic Agrarian Party of Moldova won a majority
of
fifty-six of the 104 seats, followed by the
Yedinstvo/Socialist
Bloc with twenty-eight seats. Two pro-Romanian unification
parties did not do well: the Congress of Peasants and
Intellectuals won eleven seats, and the CPDF won nine
seats. A
number of other parties did not get a high enough
percentage of
the popular vote to be represented in the new Parliament.
In March the chair of Parliament, Petru Lucinschi, was
elected to his post, and the prime minister, Andrei
Sangheli, was
reappointed to his post. In April Parliament approved a
new
Council of Ministers, Moldova's membership in the CIS, and
Moldova's signing of a CIS charter on economic union
(although
the country would not participate in political or military
integration within the CIS). A referendum on March 6,
1994,
confirmed the country's course of political independence
for the
future: the Moldovan electorate voted overwhelmingly for
Moldova
to maintain its territorial integrity.
Now that the legislative logjam was broken, Parliament
was
able to work on a new constitution, which it ratified on
July 28
and implemented August 27, 1994. The new constitution
granted
substantial autonomy to Transnistria and the "Gagauz
Republic"
while reasserting Moldovan national identity and
sovereignty.
Gagauzia (in Romanian; Gagauz-Yeri, in Gagauz) would have
cultural, administrative, and economic (but not
territorial)
autonomy and would elect a regional legislative assembly,
which
in turn would elect a guvernator (in Romanian;
baskan, in Gagauz), who would also be a member of
the
Moldovan government. This was ratified by Parliament in
January
1995.
Members of the Democratic Agrarian Party of Moldova
held a
cautious attitude toward marketization and privatization,
leading
experts to believe that progress in economic reform would
be
slow, but would be more consistent and better implemented
than
previously. The hard-line nationalists and the former
communists
could not vote as a majority to block progress.
Data as of June 1995
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