Moldpres commentary

Igor Smirnov’s image of pro-Russian politician, which has been edified carefully, although in haste, in autumn in 2006, has been destroyed. At his insistence, the region’s legislature adopted a decision on redirecting the money meant to pay the Russian gas to pay off pensions and salaries.

Making use of speaker Yevgeniy Shevchuk, who don’t quite have experience, Smirnov, in fact, forced him to take the floor on TV, and to state that the region’s legislative body should accept this “unpopular decision”. Thus, Shevchuk took responsibility for all the local parliament and for the result of Smirnov’s arbitrary decisions.

Meanwhile, Tiraspol got into debts worth over 1.3 billion dollars for the Russian gas.
I.e. Transnistria, which boasts that it can ensure its economic independence, has not paid for this fuel. Last spring, there was a hope that the situation will start improving, although with a great delay. The region’s parliament asked to transfer the money for the Russian gas from Gazprombank, checked by Smirnov’s clan, to a special account of Transnistria’s central bank. The MPs established criminal responsibility for their use contrary to purpose. Everybody expected that the debt will not rise further on.

But everything returned to the “natural” course. Russia will get no money again. Yet now, the parliament of the unrecognized republic along with Smirnov bear the burden of the organized robbery of the supplying country. By manipulation, Smirnov passed through the legislature the decision to sent to Moscow a parliamentary delegation “to explain” why the Russian gas will further not be paid. But nobody will listen to his explanation at the Kremlin – he has lost confidence there long ago. Therefore, the delegation will fail to get money from Russia, and the insufficiency of money for pensions and salaries will soon be felt. There is a hope for success, however, if the MPs go to Russia. And when (if) progress is registered, the official propaganda, which is entirely checked by Igor Smirnov, will ascribe the success to the leader’s wisdom. The parliament will remain in shadow, just as before…

But no matter how the subject dealing with the money for gas develops, it is clear that, both the referendum from 17 September 2006 and the book Vmeste s Rossiei (Together with Russia), signed by Smirnov, and written in a haste in Moscow on the day of Transnistria, and many others, all of them represented a game aiming at getting Russian subsidies in exchange of oral loyalty oaths. Once it was ascertained that no payment in dollars will follow for the love for Russia, the Tiraspol power preferred to pick the client’s pockets.

What can you do, everybody earns money in his/her way. But isn’t it time ripe that Moscow wonders: how is called the love for which the client demands payment necessarily in hard currency?

This editorial was first published on 19 July 2007 by Moldpres, the state news agency of the Republic of Moldova. It is reproduced by Tiraspol Times in full, with no editing or any kind and with spelling- and grammatical errors left intact from the original version.