The consequences for the mass hysteria around the Chinese cough are only now starting to be visible. Broken supply chains, disruptions in public transport since not all people are big fans of sanitary fascism, increased levels of disinformation in the official media (to cover up the immense fuckup), more leaks from institutions (as a result of over-trusting the Internet) and, of course, more terrible economic consequences – including where you were told they won’t happen (such as in the real estate market in China).
Meanwhile, unrelated to the sanitary hysteria, there’s also the green hysteria (also based on scientism) which is now skyrocketing the energy bills of those unfortunate enough to be living in the European Union. Countries are trying desperately to avoid a deterioration which will lead to vigorous political and scientific debates in the streets (particularly in Spain, Greece and France).
In the meantime, Bulgaria braces for the third round of general elections in 2021, Gavin Newsom survives historical recall effort, former Brexit negotiator takes a U-turn on immigration, Maori party in New Zealand wants to change the name of the country and even the propaganda mouthpiece of the far-Left – The Atlantic – figures it out that Australia is a fascist shithole.
These, and other news, are discussed in this most recent World Sofa Report.
Three countries have had elections since our last episode: Ethiopia (elections but in Amharic), Moldova and Bulgaria (elections, but in Cyrillic). So we discuss these at great length, particularly Moldova where we also have exclusive footage from.
In other news, Boston Pride – an LGBT-ist organization with 50 years of tradition and experience in activism – dissolved itself because it wasn’t Marxist enough. And it did so leaving plenty of “cultural revolution” or Maoist vibes. Meanwhile, the militant Marxist organization “Black Lives Matter” defends the totalitarian regime in Cuba against the people. And in Ontario, Canada mathematics is officially too racist and needs to be decolonized. You see, Mīrzā Muhammad Tāraghay bin Shāhrukh (or Ulugh Beg), one of the greatest mathematicians that ever lived, was too white and too European. Or something.
Meanwhile, the “responsible” bar-owners in France who licked the boot of the sanitary fascist regime are now suddenly finding out that they’ll be the enforcers of it and they’ll also pay for it and for the privilege of being over-taxed and intentionally impoverished in the Fifth Republic. And, quite unsurprisingly, they still can’t notice that they themselves are the problem.
In other news, lawlessness and looting reigns supreme once again in Zuid-Afrika, even the drone-working Japanese have raised the middle finger to the imbecilic policy of “teleworking” and Australia and NZ continue to be dystopian nightmares masquerading as first-world developed democracies.
Oh, and K-pop may succeed in achieving where everyone else failed. K-pop may indeed be for DPRK what Pink Floyd was for DDR 35-ish years ago. It’s a fascinating story that we explore with context and with other examples from recent history where sub-par pop culture managed to topple regimes that seemed impossible to deal with.
And, finally, the most important and capitalistic economic sector of New Zealand – agriculture – may indeed be destroyed by the current socialist-Labor administration.
These, and other news, are discussed quite thoroughly in this episode taped in Armenopolis.
Uploading videos in real time is less of a challenge in Moldova than in other places (e.g. Georgia, Ukraine or Zimbabwe). The internet speeds are quite decent (superiour to Germany, for sure).
However, Google decided to be stupid in public and made logging in de facto impossible. So… Bitchute exclusive will it be until I get back to the home base. Also, editing takes time which I’d rather spend walking, filming, interviewing and driving around the 2000+ km roadtrip inside Moldova. But writing some thoughts very late in the night is more doable.
So with that out of the way, here’s what’s been going on.
First of all, those of the opinion that the European Union is Satanic might have a point. I’m only half joking. Of course, Satan probably doesn’t exist and the EU bureaucrats are a bunch of loons. However, the EU flag in the Ștefan cel Mare și Sfînt Park in downtown Chișinău is created, roughly speaking, using 12 renditions of the Sigil of Baphomet. And since Moldova is a mini-EU, err… you get the point. Tho we’d argue that Moldova is more like a mini-layout (minimachetuță) of the EU. But that’s a meme for another time.
Being interviewed by Carabinieri in front of the Moldovan Parliament
Secondly, I learned that you still need a loicense to videotape in front of the Moldovan Parliament. I didn’t need one in Germany, Slovenia, “illiberal” Hungary, Ukraine (under state of war), Georgia, Armenia or even Zimbabwe. But Moldova… is different.
I taped a 40-second segment there in order to use in a montage for the English-language channel. But it took over 15 minutes of chit-chats with three different police squads in three different branches in order to be allowed to do the unspeakable act of taping a 40-second report with the Parliament building behind me.
At least now I have the incentive to finish the montage and publish it before the election. And remember: the country is now ruled by a supposedly “liberal” administration that promotes transparency és szar.
The silver lining would be that at least no paperwork had to be done for this, the officers were civilized and one of them even sort-of apologized for the procedure even existing in the first place. Still… having your name broadcasted on an internal Telegram group of the Carabinieri was one of the weirdest encounters with law enforcement I’ve had in a decade.
“Multifunctional center” in Bălți. Notice the Marx, Lenin and Engels on top of the building.
Although Soviet-era displays are (finally) on their way out from the country, you can still spot them from time to time if you pay enough attention.
Now that in itself wouldn’t be such a terrible thing if it hadn’t been for the fact that in this very election one of the factions running hadn’t been the Communists (red star and hammer and sickle and the whole 9-yards) with good chances of winning.
Campaign tent of the Electoral Block of the Communists and Socialists. Chișinău, July 1, 2021.
If Moldovans had been spending at least half of the energy they spend on terrible politics by focusing on the downtrodden buildings in downtown Chișinău… that would be great. But then again, that would make the whole place a lot less fascinating so… there’s that.
Lada Vaz 2103, Fălești, July 1, 2021.
On a more serious note, the place that keeps on giving leaders of this country, Fălești district, is underwhelming. This district is the hometown of the previous president, of the mayor of Bălți and runner in this election, of multiple ex-ministers and even more political operatives, shills, propagandists and apparatchiks.
Back in Romania, such places (which, for whatever reason, tend to give a disproportionate amount of national leaders or influential people) also benefit from some special attention. I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or not that this isn’t and hasn’t been happening in Moldova. Not my place to judge.
500m from the Parliament, Chișinău
But no, seriously, the amount of downtrodden buildings on a 700m radius from the seat of the Parliament and the seat of the Government is too high.
Perhaps I am wrong, but it stands to reason that things could improve if more attention were given by the city on code enforcement than on who is committing the unspeakable act of videotaping in front of the Parliament.
It is likely that I am wrong, though, because the economic situation of the country is worse than what the official numbers show. I haven’t seen so many central (read: downtown) commercial spaces for rent or outright for sale in Moldova since mid 2000s. The economic crisis is not an academic discussion in Moldova. It’s already here and it’s very rough.
If a political party manages to deliver something, anything on economics in the next 6 to 18 months, that political party will rule this country until 2030.
If I were a betting man, I’d wager that none of them will be able. And things will go south even more. Because fixing the economics of this country is hard work. And ain’t no-one got time fo’ that. There’s bread and circus to be delivered.
This is Chișinău on July 2:
Across the street there was a huge screen for people to watch EURO2021. People here support Ukraine. And, to a lesser extent, Czechia and Italy. At least that’s perfectly understandable. Because Ukraine, Czechia and Italy are understandable to Moldovans. Denmark or England? Not so much.
In any event – the show must go on. And it will. Even if on an emptier stomach.
Just recently, the donors of the Network have fulfilled the fundraiser towards a 2-week-trip to Republic of Moldova to cover the campaign for the upcoming snap elections. We are grateful for your generosity and we already started putting the logistics together (put our paperwork in order, make sure we have a place to stay, transportation, etc.) – but… that’s the easy part.
The hard part is getting ourselves in the mental framework to do this job properly for you. So before we hit the road, we’ll try hard to get you up to speed and in the mental framework as well.
We’ve covered events before (elections, summits, controversial marches, tensed political events, etc.) both in English and in Romanian. So we approach this with a reasonable amount of confidence that we’ll be able to deliver on the expectations the fans and donors have on us.
However, what we never did before is to try to convey the inner-workings of an inside joke to a group that is outside of it. Just like it’s difficult to explain the implications of a remark like “Okay, boomer!” or “Top kek!” to a Romanian who doesn’t speak English and doesn’t hang out in the godforsaken corners of the Internet that many of y’all do, the same is true when it comes to explaining the implications of many things Moldova to those who don’t speak Romanian. Yet that’s exactly what we’ll have to do.
Heck, sometimes we need to explain to Romanians on the right side of the Prut river some of these things because no matter how similar the two societies are (the Romanian and Moldovan) there are still shockingly many differences.
Despite having Romanian as the official language, Russian is still pretty common in Moldova. And that’s not so bad. The worst part is that the common parlance on the left side of the Prut river is rife with calques – especially phraseological calques – in which an idiom from Russian is translated word-for-word into Romanian and then you’re just expected to “get it” – and you can’t unless you either lived in Moldova for years or you speak Russian well enough to figure out the context on the spot.
Such situations exist in every country, of course. For instance the French phrase ça va sans dire got calqued in English as “it goes without saying” and today it seems normal. Nobody bats an eyelid when hearing it and everyone understands what the speaker meant. However, in most countries of Europe, such imports into the language occurred decades or even centuries ago.
In Moldova, most of them occurred in the last 20 years or so – as more and more people started to speak Romanian in public (since Russian was no longer mandatory) but those generations were educated in the Soviet system. Perhaps this explains why so many young people are running in this election (more on that later).
Here’s a video that is impossible to translate fully into English, Romanian or Russian. You basically need to speak the latter two really damn well (or to have lived in Moldova for many years) to get an idea of what this very smart history teacher is trying to convey. Good luck:
At the same time, however, Moldova is still going through an identity crisis. Is it really a country? If it is, then surely some particularities aren’t a big deal. After all, the German spoken in Austria isn’t exactly identical to the one spoken in Germany, n’est-ce pas?
If it isn’t a country, then why bother since it will soon be integrated into something else? But hold on – what something else? This election, a party called “The Patriots of Moldova” is running on the platform to make Moldova a federal subject of Russia with certain conditions.
Also in this election, with bigger chances of passing the 5% threshold to get into the legislative, there’s a Romanian party running whose objective is also the dissolution of Moldova through complete and unconditional integration of the country into its western neighbor – Romania. The Alliance for the Unification of Romanians already shook the leftist-elitist political class in Romania after they “unexpectedly” got into the Parliament – so now that they’re running in Moldova as well with the same unionist message, the powers-that-be are treading more carefully. More on that later.
And then there’s the Transnistria issue. Or the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. A place so weird that it’s hard to explain even to Romanians, let alone to those not familiar with the shenanigans of the Soviet Union or Russia.
So, let’s try: The Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR) is a sliver of land on the left side of the Dniester (Nistru) river sandwiched between Ukraine and the rest of Moldova that’s on the right side of the Dniester river.
From an international law perspective, the PMR belongs to Moldova. De facto, however, as a result of the 1992 Transnistrian War, the PMR is a separate country with its own currency (recognized only by Russia) which only recognizes the Romanian language if it’s written in the Soviet Cyrillic script.
Point of information: there was a moment when the Romanian language was written in the Cyrillic script but that stopped almost 200 years ago. Also, the script used in the 1830s is not the same used today in Transnistria under the official name of “Moldovan Cyrillic Alphabet“.
Well, usually, the votes from this region (which de jure belongs to Moldova) would routinely go towards pro-Russian factions. This time around, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) decided not to allow any polling stations in Transnistria because the Chișinău authorities can’t control them properly. All fine and dandy but in previous elections, it happened multiple times for voters to be physically carried over the “border” to cast votes (sometimes multiple votes per person) for the preferred Russian faction.
Readers from the ex-Yugoslav space may be more likely to get the idea of this practice as it also happened last summer in 2020 in Montenegro and it routinely happens in Bosnia or Serbia – particularly in the buffer area Republika Srpska (which de jure belongs to Bosnia and Herzegovina Federation but the populace’s loyalties routinely lie with Belgrade).
Moldovan /politics/
Moldovan politics in general are basically a meme, but this is particularly true this time around.
The political party supported by the Romanian Government and the European Union is called /pas/ – yes, kinda like /pol/ – except it has terrible memes and imagery.
The Party for Action and Solidarity – /pas/ – also doesn’t really think Moldova is a country. But they also don’t think Moldova should be Russian or Romanian. They’d prefer Moldova to be a blob of everything for everyone (globohomo basically) and maybe a “civic nation” à la française but without too much Allahu Ackbar like the original.
The slogan? “We are kickstarting the good times” (Pornim vremurile bune) – an NPC slogan by an NPC party for NPC voters. The same NPC voters who made other no-names relevant in Moldovan politics in the past. Or, as our favorite Moldovan analyst Marcela Țușcă would put it: “The goodniks” (with the implicit assumption, of course, that those who defy the Progress and Good brought by /pas/ are, of course, nogoodniks. The root of the word goodnik is Russian and Yiddish and may have come into English from present-day Moldova)
/pas/ wants to dissolve Moldova into the wider EU (and, make no mistake, it stands a good chance of succeeding since it will likely form the next government). The AUR wants to dissolve Moldova into Romania – and if they get into the Parliament they may even end up in Government. The “Patriots” want to dissolve it into Russia (these guys are way too late to the party, though).
Then there’s BECS. No, it’s not a misspelling of the Hungarian name for Vienna (Bécs) but an acronym standing for Blocul Electoral al Comuniștilor și Socialiștilor (The Electoral Block of the Communists and Socialists). This alliance is run by two pro-Russian ex-presidents – Vladimir Voronin and Igor Dodon.
For those who may have followed Moldova in the past, Vladimir Voronin is that president against whom the people rose up on April 7, 2009 in a similar fashion their western neighbors had risen up 20 years earlier against Ceaușescu.
No matter how you look at it, these guys represent the distant past. Vladimir Vornin just turned 80 a month ago and Igor Dodon is increasingly unpopular even in his own party (The Socialist Party of Republic of Moldova – PSRM) as the base of PSRM perceives him as having lost the support of the Kremlin. Whether that’s true or not we will surely find out by July 14. One thing is certain though: The path to victory for BECS is pretty narrow because in addition to fielding very pasée frontrunners, their message – one of independence – is a lot less popular than it was even a year ago, let alone 5 or 10 years ago. The faith in Moldova as a viable independent state is running dry. More cynical observers may even go as far as to say that Moldova as a state died a long time ago but it didn’t find that out yet.
Then there are two contenders named after two people: The electoral block “Renato Usatîi” and the Șor Party (named after Ilan Șor).
Renato Usatîi is the mayor of Bălți, a town known as a Russian-speaking stronghold. We will go there and will show you how it evolved. For now, it is worth noting that Renato Usatîi was instrumental in unseating Igor Dodon back in November 2020. He ran in the presidential election, came in third with ~17% of the vote and in the second round he advised his voters to reject Igor Dodon.
However, while him personally is quite popular, the electoral block bearing his name is not sure it will get the 5% necessary to be in the next Parliament.
One reason him personally is popular is because under his leadership the municipality of Bălți suffered a transformation mostly for the better – and it even attracted international attention as to how transparent his administration is and just how much has corruption been reduced. Now, make no mistake, it’s still pretty corrupt, but before Usatîi, Bălți would make some Brazilian local authorities blush.
Usatîi would like to create the Moldovan equivalent of the Mossad to hunt down corrupt politicians, abolish district (raion) authorities and intensify economic cooperation with Romania and Ukraine.
Ilan Șor is the former mayor of Orhei. At the age of 34 he has a resume similar to more seasoned oligarchs. Born in Tel Aviv (from parents that had fled the USSR), grown up in Moldova since age 3, Ilan Șor came out as a strong advocate for the Russian-speaking population. He is married with Jasmin – a successful Russian pop-singer. He owns a football club, several duty-free stores, he got elected as mayor of Orhei whilst on house arrest and also got involved in the so-called “the billion scandal” in which roughly one billion dollars (one eighth of Moldova’s GDP) vanished from Moldova’s banks. Just like that. He is currently in hiding. And he’s just 34 years old!
The Șor Party could accurately be described as national-socialist. They believe in Big Government, Big Welfare State, nationalization of foreign energy firms, collective farming (they literally advocate for the return of the kolkhoz) and all around socialism. However, they distrust big transnational involvement (such as the European Union), they like the Church (and cultural conservatism in general) and, unlike the Western Left, they also support law and order (including death penalty).
At the moment of this writing 19 political parties and “electoral blocks” signed up for the election. That number may change as a few others are wrapping up their paperwork. Besides, in Moldova it is perfectly possible to be disqualified three days before voting day. Ask Renato Usatîi about that.
The Moldovan /press/
Partisan press exists in every country on Earth so the fact that such thing exists in Moldova as well comes as no surprise.
However, the way in which this is done oftentimes shocks even seasoned political operatives from the Intermarium area (who should be, and are, accustomed to this neighborhood’s way of doing things).
There is not much etiquette. It’s just straight-up agenda-driven reporting without any pretense of being anything else. In a way, that can be a good thing but the readership makes things depressing to look at and analyze.
Shilling is also at a level not seen in Eastern Europe for 20 years. To call it low-tier bait would be an understatement. Take for instance this article from Timpul. The headline reads: ”The communist Securitate officer is still on PAS’s list. On April 7th he was KIDNAPPING young people off the streets and taking them to police precincts” – and then throughout the article the individual in question is called a torturer (torționar). The Romanian word torționar is associated with the odious crimes against humanity committed in Communist-era prisons such as the Pitești experiment.
Now, make no mistake, this individual from /pas/ may indeed be a terrible commie bootlicker – but he is no torționar.
Similar type of gross exaggeration comes from all sides. In the pro-Russian media Romanians are casually called ”fascists”, ”imperialists” and even worse names are reserved for those further west.
Those who complain about the American media as being “hyperpartisan” should take a trip to Moldova to see what a real hyperpartisan media landscape looks like.
The more ”credible” media outlets (and by ”credible” one should understand slightly less hysterical but also very partisan) have meme names or meme practices.
It is unclear where this practice of writing /like this/ came from but it’s so common that the /pas/ logo doesn’t look so weird as it would look for those not accustomed to the Moldovan way of doing things.
Back in 2017-18, the Social Democrats in Romania (then in power) pejoratively called those who protested against them haștagiști (lit. the hashtag-ers). Well, in Moldova there is a legit media outlet called Diez (lit. hashtag).
And to make sure it lives up to the meme – the motto is ”News for young people”.
And the meme-stereotype goes even further: All of the news on the website are incredibly short. Basically the founders assume that their target audience is kinda retarded and lacks the attention span to read 1000 words. So most of their “articles” are under 200 words. Meme /press/ 🤷♂️
Youth politics
Drawing from the wisdom that Moldova is like the European Union in miniature, the worst excesses of the EU and many of the worst excesses of Russia are present in Moldova if you know where or how to look. Oftentimes the presence is pretty glaring.
Earlier in this article we mentioned that so many young people are running in this election. But just how young? Well, one of the few articles that is longer than 200 words on Diez.md is the one with the whole list of people younger than 30 that are running in this election.
While in the EU political parties go out of their way to accommodate young people – some even going as far as instituting a mandatory quota – in Moldova no such thing is necessary. If anything, some parties would probably need some pro-boomer policies 🤪
It is true that many of those young people are not on the so-called eligible spots (meaning they’re so far down the list that only a miracle or an extreme tragedy would take them into the next Parliament) – but, even so, the number of very young people involved officially in national politics is still quite astonishing in itself.
For instance, if /pas/ manages to win 51 seats, that would mean 2 legislators born in 1991 and one born in 1993.
If the political party PACE wins 13 seats, then that would put in the next Parliament a legislator born in 2002. That would mean a legislator who was in utero at the time of 9/11 and under the age of 7 at the defining moment of Moldova’s post-Soviet history (namely the April 7th protests). It’s unlikely that PACE would surpass the 5% threshold, but the intellectual exercise in itself should tell you just how young the political class is poised to be in Moldova in just a few more years.
The electoral block “Renato Usatîi” is unsure if it will be in the next Parliament. But if it manages to get 8 or 9% of the vote, this will mean at least one legislator from them born after 1998.
Platforma Demnitate și Adevăr (the Dignity and Truth Platform) may get into the Parliament unless it withdraws to support /pas/. If they don’t withdraw, they will send at least one legislator born in 1994.
If the Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR) repeats in Moldova the score it has gotten in Romania, they will send one legislator born in 1994 and another one born in 1991. That would mean people who weren’t even born when the Soviet Union was still a thing.
A lot of things can happen (Moldovan elections, when looked at for this kind of nitty-gritty, is notoriously unpredictable) but the point remains: All political parties have on their lists people who could never be elected in most of the EU (as they wouldn’t be allowed to run due to their age).
On the other hand, Moldova is a mess. So it’s not like these young people can really make things significantly worse, relatively speaking.
After all, there’s always room for worse (întotdeauna se poate mai rău) as Romanians bitterly (and cynically) say when referring to the Regime but, realistically speaking, a few 20-somethings in the next legislative body of Moldova will probably be no big deal overall. Other issues will come up much faster than the perceived lack of experience of a few MPs.
However, what’s a lot more interesting is the trend. While this won’t make much of a difference on July 11, 2021, at least some of those born between 1991 and 2003 (!!) that are now running (and will predictably fail to win a seat) will stay around in politics. How will their mentality be affected? What kind of worldview will they end up developing as a result of getting into politics at such a young age?
To give you an idea about how out of touch the legacy institutions are, Radio Free Europe was running a report a week ago lamenting that young people in Moldova aren’t interested in politics. Well… it’s quite hard to reconcile that kind of messaging with the reality that there are more young people per capita running in the upcoming Moldovan election than in any EU country in the last two decades.
Is that a good thing? If not, why not?
These are questions we will have to explore in the field in the upcoming weeks we’ll be spending on the left side of the Prut river.
As a rule, wherever there’s young people and politics radicalism and radicalization isn’t far away. Will this “rule” hold true for Moldova as well? Keep in mind that the economic level of Moldova is very backwards (it is the poorest country in Europe after all) which can foster resentment and radicalization even faster than in the West.
Many American youth got radicalized (to the Left or to the Right) because they can’t purchase a new home in a nice suburb. In Moldova the concept of a new home is pretty alien. The median household income in Moldova is $2,145 per year. In other words, we at the Freedom Alternative Network, will end up spending in two weeks to study their elections more than the official median household income for an entire year.
Now, of course, it’s not that bad because, like it’s usual in such countries, there’s a lot of gray market, then there’s the huge diaspora and the remittances they send (a third of the population lives and works abroad) and the prices are oftentimes lower both in relative and absolute terms for many basic items. Also, adjusted for PPP $2145 is around 5000 in 2019 Int$.
Still, the fact remains: There’s much more poverty in Moldova than anywhere else in Europe. So when you have cynical youth in politics… things can go wrong.
The powers that be
It is not fair to use phrases like the deep state or the System (mandatory capital-S) when it comes to Republic of Moldova.
While, of course, such thing as a deep state exists in Moldova as well, it is far less established than it is even in the neighboring countries (Ukraine and Romania) let alone the United States or Great Britain.
This is the case because, as we mentioned a few times in this article, very few people have a firm commitment to Moldova continuing to exist as a country and State.
Sure, that doesn’t mean there aren’t bigger ones too. We mentioned earlier the $1 billion just vanishing from Moldovan banks. There was also the incident when the president was getting a nice bag full of cash (allegedly).
But corruption notwithstanding, the shadowy deals in Moldova aren’t happening as part of an established framework that we’d call the Civil Service, or the deep state or whatever name you want to give to such a structure you know it exists in your country as well.
In Moldova, however, it is much more accurate to talk about the powers that be. And who are those powers? Well, it’s not difficult to guess. Who holds authority over Moldova?
The current president, Maia Sandu, is openly supported by two of the governing parties in Romania (PNL and USRPLUS). In the past, the Romanian diplomacy would somewhat bother, occasionally, to halfheartedly deny that it is being involved in Moldovan politics. Those times are long gone.
Also, the current president is openly supported by Berlin (and, by extension, by Brussels too). Just this month, the EU approved €600 million for Moldova as part of the “economic recovery and resilience” mechanism which was supposed to be for Member States only. But then again, it’s Moldova. And the powers that be have already reached an agreement.
If it’s supported by Berlin, then Moscow likely agrees. Following the recent Putin-Biden summit, it’s quite likely to see a sudden disappearance of Muscovite objections over Moldova’s westward lurch. Call it a hunch, if you want.
In addition to Bucharest, Berlin, Brussels and Moscow, there are also business actors who are indeed part of the powers that be from Moldova’s standpoint. These include, but are not limited to, Banca Transilvania (Romania), Rompetrol (Romania), Lukoil (Russia), Orange (France) and the commerce lobby (mostly Ukrainian and Romanian – for obvious reasons).
If these powers that be reach an understanding (and they likely will, if they haven’t already) then the political forces that disagree with a core component of that said understanding may end up in trouble.
What the public sees
All while this is happening in the background, the public continues to argue in other parameters.
It is worth noting that in Moldova, oftentimes, the public is privy to the real discussions as well. Not necessarily by design, but because the country is small enough that you can’t really keep a secret.
Nevertheless, this election may be the first one in which themes from Romania overlap and makes the public discourse a lot more complicated (and nuanced) than in the past.
Just two years ago the discourse was “pro-Russians” versus “pro-Europe”. That’s it. Even though at least a third of the populace wants unification with Romania, the powers that be always made sure that that option is not on the table. And the same is being attempted now as well.
Mark Tkaciuk former ideologue of the Communist Party founded a new party a month ago with a view to run for this election. Yet he isn’t campaigning. Instead he is fighting tooth and nail in the courts to get the Alliance for the Unification of Romanians off the ballot. Why?
It’s difficult to assess since we’re not yet in the field but the easiest explanation (which routinely turns out to be the correct one) is because the powers that be don’t exactly like AUR. It’s not that there’s anything inherently bad about AUR – but if the understanding is for /pas/ to govern (which is the most likely outcome anyway) – it is preferable to have /pas/ get a majority in the Parliament in a coalition with Renato Usatîi (thus returning the favor from November 2020 when Usatîi helped /pas/ leader Maia Sandu win the run-off against the Kremlin-backed candidate and incumbent president Igor Dodon).
Mark Tkaciuk in fact admitted (sort of) on TV that the main beneficiary of removing AUR from the ballot would indeed be /pas/. But why would a Russian shill want to help the pro-EU party?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Prut river, AUR is routinely painted (falsely) as a pro-Russia party. So imagine the 🤡: The same political party is ”pro-Russian” in Bucharest but openly and harshly pursued by legit pro-Russians with a view to have it disqualified from the race in Chișinău. Welcome to politics in this part of the world!
Meanwhile, the allegedly anti-Russian and pro-EU /pas/ has on its list a lady who thinks Romanians are fascists, a chap who believes (just like Stalin unironically) that such thing as the Moldovan ethnicity exists, and another chap who believes such thing as the Moldovan language exists. All of these represent legit pro-Russian shilling and talking points but… the powers that be decided that /pas/ is anti-Russian, therefore you WILL believe that. Or else your mother is Putin. Or something.
However, even though the efforts to remove AUR from the ballot are ongoing and could help /pas/ and president Maia Sandu, the president herself made an unexpected move and asked the Migration Board to review the case of AUR president and founder George Simion – who got banned from the country for 5 years in 2018 by the pro-Kremlin regime at the time. Errr… that’s a long story in itself.
And then there’s the whole business with the Diaspora. Unlike Ireland, Greece, Armenia or Israel (countries which also have huge diasporas) – Moldova permits equal voting from all citizens wherever they are in the world and organizes polling stations for them at consular offices. Romania does the same too although at a much bigger scale.
Well, the diaspora vote tends to skew heavily for the pro-western and unionist parties. So it is in the best interest of the socialists and communists to frustrate the diaspora vote as much as possible.
In the past the diaspora vote was pretty balanced since a huge chunk of the diaspora lived and worked in Russia. But, over the last 5-ish years, the Moldovan diaspora started to look more like the Romanian one (in part because many of them acquired Romanian citizenship) and worked more in the EU (including Romania) and, with that, also came a shift in the vote, geopolitically speaking.
Every single election season there’s a dispute about the number of polling stations in diaspora. The ‘right’ (read: not Russian commies) prefer more polling stations in the west and as few as possible in Russia. The ‘left’ prefers the opposite.
In the last two weeks there were even small protests in Germany, Romania, the UK, Italy and other places against CEC’s decision not to severely increase the number of polling stations in the West to avoid the long and excruciating queues observed in 2020. But CEC is run by a Socialist (Maxim Lebedinschi) so… yet another court battle.
One thing the Moldovans get better than Romania: Their court battles on these matters are surprisingly swift. Which can be both a good thing (speedy trial is generally good) but also annoying (it encourages frivolous lawsuits that harass parties and waste their time and distract from campaigning).
And then there are the promises. We won’t get into that now because it’s much better to show them to you on tape. Because you’d never believe us otherwise.
Nobody in the EU (or North America, or indeed South America) dares to promise in the election that they will quadruple all wages. Nobody. No matter how populist(ic) a candidate or a party may be. But such promises are thrown around like candy in Moldova. More on that in a few weeks.
Conclusions
Of course, this article barely scratches the surface on what Moldovan politics are. There’s no way an article, no matter how long, can cover everything.
Three months ago we invited on the Sofa a fan of /pas/ just to walk us through the political history since April 7, 2009 (the turning point in Moldovan politics the way December 1989 was the turning point for Romania). The chap doesn’t really like to speak a lot. We still ended up talking for over 3 hours just to list all of the events and explain the terms. Translating that into English would take two weeks at the very least and a re-edting to include extra explanations.
Perhaps we’ll just have to do it allover again in English. If he’ll want to, of course. Until then, those who speak Romanian may want to review the Sofa’s older videos with Marcela Țușcă, especially this one.
For this tour, we will only explain in English the aspects not yet explained in previous materials. For the coverage in Romanian, we will assume that everything discussed in the over 12 hours of Moldova-related content from podcasts and interviews is already known.
One definitive conclusion that we can draw now is this: The two weeks spent in Moldova are not going to be a walk in the park. Meme country with meme politics reported by a meme press… untangling that ain’t going to be easy, that’s for sure.
After months of procrastination and another few months of prepping, finally we can now say that such thing called non-Leftist lawfare finally exists. In its early stages, sure, but in a much better shape than just 12 months ago.
We start the show with a piece of news that connects the current US administration with a Romanian corruption scandal and the current head of European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Then we delve into the positive effects of the Wuhan Flu – namely a booming job market for teenagers willing to work rather than sit in indoctrination camps and prisons (routinely referred in public wrongly as ”public schools”); an outright flattening of the public trust in the most corrupt bureaucrats in the world (routinely referred deceitfully as “experts”) and the coordinated efforts to intentionally destroy the political careers (via lawfare, protest, ballot box and beyond) of every single official who sang the tune of the ‘dEaDLy vIRuS’.
Meanwhile, Peru held yet another contested election in which both finalists are political outsiders and very polarized.
Speaking of polarization, Eric Zemmour (France’s Tucker Carlson as both his friends and his enemies routinely call him) has gathered so much influence that now serious questions are being asked on whether he will run for President. We’ll unpack that for you.
Meanwhile, the German tabloid BILD finally blows the whistle: 100% of the pandemic ‘measures’ that impacted children were not just immoral, illegal, useless and illiberal: but outright harmful in numerous ways to all children. There’s nothing the tabloid can do about it except for asking for forgiveness. Which is already a lot more than what dictator Merkel and the illiberal autocratic regime in Berlin has done so far. By the way, the regime in Berlin is busy arresting journalists. But please don’t notice that. You’re supposed to only pay attention to the bad dictatorship – not the ‘good’ one.
At the same time, Matteo Salvini is still working to create a bigger EU Parliament group to finally advance the interests of those not exactly fond of current Brussels – all while the Italian media is rife with CCP infiltration.
In the Middle East, everyone is focused on Israeli politics as the Netanyahu era appears to be drawing to an end. Yet, the more things change, the more they stay the same as the Netanyahu legacy will live on even if the fragile anti-Bibi coalition manages to get sworn into power.
A lot more interesting are the incremental changes happening in Saudi Arabia. In a move that seemed unimaginable 5 years ago, the Ministry for Islamic Affairs ordered mosques to turn down the volume so it won’t bother the sleep of children and non-Muslim residents. Remember, officially non-Muslims don’t exist in Saudi Arabia! The hosts’ Middle-Eastern experience comes in handy to put this apparently non-important piece of news into the wider context.
In Asia, all eyes will be on the showtrials against Aung San Suu Kyi which will be staged by the military regime later on this month. But perhaps more important is the topic of logistics. The disruption in the supply chains brought by the useless, illiberal, immoral and illegal measures justified by the Wuhan Cough has thrown the global shipment industry into probably the weirdest crisis in its history – a crisis which makes “stuff” more expensive for everyone and also slows down deliveries for most of the planet even if nobody has any pandemic restrictions anymore on commercial transport.
Also, the demographics of China is now so bad that the CCP openly acknowledges that manure may hit the ventilator much faster than previously thought. But how bad can it be? Well… the mathematics don’t look good, that’s for sure.
And, finally, Down Under there are increasing concerns about mice infestation. Imagine a billion mice in the city of Sydney or Canberra. Well… in a few weeks you won’t have to imagine. Because that’s what’s going to happen since the state governments have been busy wasting resources on sanitary fascism against its own people over a cough that killed fewer people in Australia than the ‘vaccine’ allegedly meant to prevent it.
These, and other topics (such as the notion of a global corporate tax or autonomous drones attacking soldiers on its own) are being discussed in a very dense World Sofa Report episode.
Plenty of good news in this episode as a lot of good things are happening in the background. New conservative groups are emerging in the US that are finally applying proper agitprop instead of relying on boomer-tier pearl-clutching ‘methods’.
A conservative group turns the tables on the woke left and goes after people, not institutions. Another one goes after CEOs in woke capitalism by name and personally, rather than by company. Yet another group launches a PAC to support school board candidates that will helicopter far-Leftism in the classroom. And, finally, the Superme Court throws Roe v. Wade revision into the 2022 Midterms discussion.
Also, several Oregon counties voted to join Idaho in a bid to get away from the toxic governance emanating from the People’s Republic of Portlandia.
Meanwhile, thousands gather for a bike rally in support of Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro in a glorious parade. We show footage from it because the news about it has been heavily distorted.
France bans ‘gender-neutral’ language in schools after it decrees it as harmful for learning – while the political class becomes increasingly ‘far-right’ on the question of a certain religion of special needs. Poland defies EU top court eco-Marxist ruling that would threaten Poland’s energy security; Matteo Salvini is rid of one of the two politically motivated criminal prosecutions and the populist Right continues to grow even in places you wouldn’t expect – such as Finland.
Meanwhile, Belarus’ actions are labelled as ‘state terrorism’ in the latest incident of hybrid warfare where Russian shilling went into full gear while EU kabuki theater also hit new levels of pathetic.
Nigeria will devalue its local currency as it continues down the path to a single exchange rate and, eventually, to joining the countries with a convertible currency.
On the other side of the planet, the CCP calls dr. Fauci a ‘traitor’ as the mainstream wakes up to the fact that the ‘conspiracists’ might have had a point about the Wuhan Cough. As all of this is happening, the CCP continues to test its techno-dictatorship in Uyghuristan – this time with an emotion-detecting ‘AI’ as part of the ‘one person, one file’ program.
And, finally, Down Under, the top medical body says Australia will have to officially become once again a penal colony and remain shut ‘for decades’ if it wants to avoid coughing.
These, and other side-topics, are covered in the 16th edition of the World Sofa Report.
So far we have raised $[Value missing on settings page] towards our $[Value missing on settings page] target! That’s unknown% of the total!
Since the response has been positive to the idea of having both Romanian and English-language coverage of the Romanian elections, at the request of the regular donors, here’s some financial and logistical details.
We will be traveling entirely by car. So that’s 1200km (Cluj-Chișinău-Cluj) just to get there. And another (at least) 500km inside the country. A very generous donor has offered to cover the trip part entirely in exchange to access to knowledge. While we are very grateful for that, we hope we can offset some of that burden.
Cost of living in Moldova is not wildly different from the one in Romania and the costs presented here are for 15 days for two people.
The currency in Moldova is the Moldovan Leu (international symbol: MDL). All expenses are expressed in USD at a rate of $1 = 18 MDL and $1 = 4,1 RON.
Nr. crt.
Item
Cost per day or per person
Total
TOTAL:
1660
1
Housing
-
310
2
Fuel
-
250
3
Food, coffee, et. al.
$25/day/person
750
4
Consumables (batteries, SIM-cards)
-
30
5
Health expenses (compliance with cough19 bs, health insurance, etc.)
35/person
70
6
Emergency fund (in case compost hits the ventilator)
-
250
These represent the maximum values. For instance, if we’re lucky, health expenses and emergency expenses could be zero. But, if we’re unlucky, health expenses could be twice or thrice of the shown amount (hence the need for an emergency fund).
It is quite impossible to spend more than $1700 in two people in 15 days, but it is also unlikely that we can get away with less than $1200 considering the unavoidable expenses.
“The space between peace and war”, a place where “coercion, intimidation, propaganda and manipulation are at play.” In other words, the gray zone. That’s how the top military brass of Australia sees China right now in relation to the Five Eyes Network.
The same can be said about several other conflicts on the planet – like the conflict between the general population in Europe and the majority of European governments. Or the conflict between normal, mentally sane people and Progressives.
Attorneys General from 40 US states press Faceberg to drop the creation of a preteen Instagram citing inherent harms to such a move. Coca Cola suddenly puts a halt on militant racism after its general counsel resigns. Meanwhile, the Cho Bai Den administration has been ‘following the science’ on school reopening by letting the teachers’ unions decide everything. Very scientific indeed!
Speaking of science, nobody is willing to try to explain how come the allegedly killer virus killed roughly nobody in Haiti – a country whose populace never considered the fluffy cough to be anything serious or worthy of much attention.
Better news come from State legislatures. Florida legislature finally makes a sound decision and bans so-called ‘transgender athletes’ from women’s sports. Meanwhile, Idaho legislature bans critical race theory and cultural Marxism from public schools and the governor appointed a commission to evaluate and document the levels of Marxist indoctrination currently existent in Idaho schools with a view to eliminate them.
Meanwhile, tax hikes in Colombia are off the table after violent anti-tax protests (or vigorous political and economical debates) explain thoroughly to the government that taxation is theft.
In Europe, honks related to the pandemic continue. NHS app meant to schedule ‘vaccines’ leaks private information to anyone who wants it. For free. While in Romania one gets a free tour to the medieval instruments museum at Dracula’s castle if one gets Pfizer’s experimental gene therapy at the door.
In better news, the founder of the far-leftist party Podemos suddenly dropped any and all political activities after the voters in Madrid outright flattened them and elevated the conservatives who had morally and legally superiour positions in relation to the management of the Wuhan Cough. Much to the bien pensants’ surprise, Spaniards aren’t big fans of sanitary fascism after all.
Speaking of sanitary fascism, the illiberal regime in Canada arrests a Christian preacher in a new low for the uncivilized zeitgeist of US’ northern neighbor. And in Germany, the Green Party is the best polling party with just 4 months before the general election which is due to finally bring the Merkel regime to an end.
In India, prime minister Modi’s party, the right-wing BJP, makes substantive gains in islamo-leftist West Bengal. But one wouldn’t know that from the CNN which presents this success as a ‘loss in a key election’.
Japan’s debt skyrocketed faster than in the 1990s, growing by almost $1Tn in less than a year, a trend that worries even the Japanese who are otherwise accustomed with gigantic levels of public debt.
And, finally, New Zealand’s Ardern is trying to tone down the sinophilia shown lately by some of her cabinet ministers, but she still insists on a type of Non-Aligned Movement foreign and international trade policy that is increasingly of concern for the Five Eyes Network.
These and other news are commented thoroughly in a robust 15th episode of the World Sofa Report.
Time for a cleanup in many ways. California is bracing to cleanup its gubernatorial office while the local authorities in LA have been cleaning up the homeless population in order to satisfy the immense Ceaușescu-tier ego of the pricks attending the Oscar gala.
Meanwhile, the Arkansas legislators have successfully overridden a gubernatorial veto on a bill meant to clean up the possibilities of the transgenderist lobby to continue to mutilate confused children.
At the same time, the White House is preparing over one billion dollars to bribe the press into singing the Pandemic music; while in Brazil the Presidency is doing exactly the opposite and tells the apparatchiks he will use the army to enforce Constitutional rights and freedoms rather than illiberal and illegal sanitary fascism measures.
In Europe, Denmark is slowly gearing up to send as many Syrians back home as possible, Romania takes another step towards cleaning up the Chinese presence, Albania is bracing for a complicated governance following a hard fought election campaign (which included bullets) and the global semiconductor shortage is bound to last for at least another year. Speaking of bullets, Spanish leftists have put up a nice false flag to win some victimology points.
In the meantime, the CCP is trying even harder to get into the Big Data business in order to consolidate its techno-dictatorship while New Zealand breaks ranks with the Five Eyes Network in order to further integrate into the statute of a Chinese puppet state.
And to make sure it lives up to the meme – the motto is ”News for young people”.
