No abstract

This article analyses the parliamentary elections held in the Republic of Moldova in 2021, as a result of which the right-wing party, formerly in opposition, won, and was able to form its own single-party government with a parliamentary majority, which has not happened in Moldova exactly 20 years – since 2001. In this article the basic positions of the “left” and “right” political camps in the Republic of Moldova before the elections are analysed; as well as the mechanics of the electoral campaign and the voting process in different socio-geographical profiles. In 2021 The Republic of Moldova, for the first time in many years, faced the phenomenon of “overturning elections”; understanding the mechanics of which contributes to the development of a much better political and electoral process in general. At the same time, despite the special nature of the 2021 elections, the electoral political process in the Republic of Moldova continues to show several fixed tendencies, such as the geographical polarization of Moldovan voters residing in the EU or Russia, and the overall objective decrease of interest in the electoral process in general, regardless of the degree of the political and social representation of the political parties represented in the elections.

This paper discusses the key characteristics of the migration situation and overall trends in the migration processes in the Republic of Moldova. Practically, many of the former Soviet republics were faced with serious social and economic problems. Economical systems of new post-soviet countries were ill-equipped to handle new borders and customs barriers. As the “multi-national state” was dissolved, the majority of new post-Soviet states struggled with ethnic conflicts, which triggered the first wave of the so-called “great escape” of the population. In Moldova’s case, the Transnistrian conflict was a classic example of such a civilizational crisis, the solution to which was not found to date. The first wave of the “great escape” was triggered by the hard situation of the national identity formation. The “second wave” was a reaction to an increasingly poor economic situation. Today, the formation of the “third wave of great escape” becomes increasingly more evident – perhaps the last one for the Moldavian state. This “third wave” is also connected with integrational processes, mostly in the European Union countries. The second part of the article analyses the relationship between the economic development of the Republic of Moldova and the current migration situation. In general, despite a number of positive changes, such as the reduction of the critical high level of dependence of the economy on financial remittances of Moldovan migrant workers, the level of such dependence remains very high, and the speed of development of the Moldovan economy, on the contrary, is significantly reduced. The paper concludes with four main factors that, in the author’s opinion, are critical for the analysis of the current negative migration situation in the Republic of Moldova, as well as those that may become key factors that will have a significant impact on the strengthening of the negative socio-economic situation in the country and the systemic crisis in the future 2035–2040.

No abstract