Communism for the Twenty-first Century: The Moldovan Experiment

For most of the first decade of the present century, Moldova was governed by the Party of Communists of Moldova, led by Vladimir Voronin, who displayed impressive political skills as the president of the republic and party leader. In office, the party engaged in a political reorientation towards Europe in 2004–5 and an ideological transformation in 2008, yet the party remains a superficially reformed, non-transmuted communist successor party. During eight years in office, 2001–9, it led a semi-consolidated authoritarian regime similar to the neo-communist constructs of Ion Iliescu in Romania and Zhan Videnov in Bulgaria. The crisis of 2009 weakened the party, however, with defections of leading communists to other parties. Moldova has thus returned to a situation of ‘pluralism by default’ and a hybrid political regime, in which the communists, though weakened, remain a potent political force.