1

Anton S. Vinogradov

Capstone Paper

May 6, 2015

Georgetown University

The paradoxes of parliamentarism in Albania and Moldova: The

curious cases of strong presidents under parliamentary

constitutions

The downfall of communism and collapse of the Soviet Union

led to a drastic transformation of the political systems of the

East European and post-Soviet states. The leaders and

parliamentarians of these countries were faced with the task of

crafting a constitution that would reflect their countries’ long-

term goals and aspirations and provide the bedrock for the

burgeoning pluralism of political interests. One of the most

important choices that the writers of the new constitutions had

to face was how to distribute executive prerogatives between the

president and the prime minister. Closely connected with this

issue was the question of whether the president was to be elected

directly or indirectly.

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It was widely recognized that having direct presidential

elections would favor the president as he/she would be seen as

the personification of the nation and would derive legitimacy

directly from the people. In most cases, directly elected

presidents also had greater constitutional prerogatives and were

not accountable to parliament. Thus, the political situation in

which these considerations were discussed and decided upon

largely predetermined the constitutional prerogatives of the

presidents. Albania, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary, and Latvia

chose to have weak, indirectly elected presidents, while Belarus,

Bulgaria, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, and

Ukraine went with stronger, directly elected presidents.1

In both cases, however, the powers of the presidents were

generally limited by the provisional constitutional laws or

constitutions.2 Some presidents, such as Lech Wałęsa of Poland,

Mircea Snegur of Moldova, and even Vaclav Havel of

1 Of course, the constitutional prerogatives of the presidents within each group of countries vary considerably. The powers of the Russian president, for example, were considerably greater than those of the Bulgarian president.

2 Major exceptions to this general rule were the 1993 constitution of Russia and the 1996 constitution of Ukraine.

3

Czechoslovakia, sought to expand their constitutional

prerogatives, but their attempts were largely futile.3 However,

legal limitations did not prevent some presidents, such as Ion

Iliescu, Slobodan Miloševic,4 and Franjo Tudjman, from exercising

considerably greater authority than that envisaged by the

constitution.

The cases of Albania between 1992 and 1997 and Moldova

between 2001 and 2009 represent an interesting deviation from the

rule that directly elected presidents tend to have fewer real

powers than directly elected ones.5 There are a number of notable

3 Gerald M. Easter, “Preference for Presidentialism: Postcommunist Regime Change in Russia and the NIS,” World Politics 49, no. 2 (1997): 189-190; Steven D. Roper, “From semi-presidentialism to parliamentarism: Regime change and presidential power in Moldova,” Europe-Asia Studies 49, no. 2 (1997):118

4 I am referring to Miloševic’s two-term presidency of Serbia(1989-1997).

5 The case of Yugoslavia under Slobodan Miloševic is another interesting exception. Miloševic’s case differs from the other two in that he had already been in power in Serbia for the preceding ten years and used federal presidency to prolong his rule. Due to these differences, as well as the fact that the structure of political power in Yugoslavia and its constituent republics was quite complex and riddled with inconsistencies between constitutional law and political practice that merit a separate research study of considerable length, this paper will

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similarities between the two cases. In both cases, the leaders of

the parties with a majority of seats in parliament (a rare

occurrence for postcommunist Eastern Europe), became the

presidents of their countries. They did not face any major

challenges as their party controlled the legislature, which, in

the case of parliamentary countries, is responsible for selecting

the head of state. They came to power shortly after the two

countries adopted constitutional legislation that established

parliamentarism. The powers of the two presidents exceeded the

powers of many directly elected heads of state in the region.

Albanian President Sali Berisha and Moldovan President Vladimir

Voronin were therefore subject to accusations of fostering

authoritarian tendencies and of promoting cronyism.

These cases call into question the assumption that

parliamentary systems are more successful in preventing

focus on the cases of Albania and Moldova. For some examples of studies focused on the case of Yugoslavia, see Lalo Sekelj, “Parties and Elections: The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Change without Transformation,” Europe-Asia Studies 52, 1 (2000): 57-75; Jovan Teokarevic, “Presidential Power in FR Yugoslavia,” Center for European Constitutional Law: Themistokles and DimitrosTsatsos Foundation, accessed March 15, 2015, http://www.cecl.gr/RigasNetwork/databank/REPORTS/r5/Yu_5_Teokarevic.html.

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democratic breakdown, as argued by Juan Linz.6 Moreover, they

contravene the general assumption that parliamentary systems

produce weak presidents. Thus, it is important to examine them in

considerable detail, using both primary and secondary sources, in

order to arrive at an understanding of how these two regimes

functioned in practice. There has been very little research on

this topic, although some works on the recent histories of the

two countries provide some important insights into how Berisha

and Voronin ruled their countries without the constitutional

prerogatives that many directly elected presidents have

My goal is to demonstrate how Berisha and Voronin were able

to rule their countries without the de-jure powers enjoyed by

presidents in presidential and even semipresidential regimes. I

will demonstrate that their authority stemmed not from their

presidential mandates, but from their ability to command the

support of their parties, both of which held a majority of seats

in parliament. They therefore benefited not only from having

considerable executive authority, but also from being able to

6 Juan Linz, “The Perils of Presidentialism,” Journal of Democracy 1, no. 1 (1990): 51-69; Juan Linz, “The Virtues of Parliamentarism,” Journal of Democracy 1, no. 4 (1990): 84-91.

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control their legislatures. They built patronage networks that

allowed them to place loyal and even sycophantic individuals into

important positions such as those of prime minister, speaker, and

party seniors. Their informal authority greatly exceeded the

formal constitutional limits placed on the power of the president

and allowed them to govern the country with almost no checks and

balances.

Key to understanding how the two presidents were able

maintain their authority is Henry Hale’s concept of “patronal

pyramids,”—informal hierarchical patronage networks led by a

patron.7 The relevance of patronal pyramids is particularly high

in postcommunist Eastern Europe and Eurasia, where democratic

institutions and procedures are still young and therefore lack

the legitimacy of Western political institutions.

Methodology

In order to answer my research questions, I use a number of

primary and secondary sources. The primary sources fall into two

categories—periodicals and constitutional/legal documentation.

7 Henry Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in a Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

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Periodicals will include both Western publications and news

wires, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Reuters, Associated

Press, and Agence France Presse. Reports from Russian news agencies,

such as RIA, ITAR-TASS, and Interfax, as well as Izvestia and Kommersant’’

will also be considered although their relevance to the Albanian

case is limited.8 Local periodicals hold considerable value for

understanding the power dynamics in Albania and Moldova but many

are them are not available in Washington, DC.9 Only two major

Albanian newspapers, Rilindja Demokratike and Zëri i Popullit, and three

Moldovan newspapers relevant to the project, Jurnal de Chișinău,

Moldavskie vedomosti, and Nezavisimaa Moldova, are available at the

Library of Congress.10

In using periodicals, one has to bear in mind that many of

these publications are biased and may attempt to portray

presidents Berisha and Voronin in an excessively positive or

8 Moreover, many Russian news articles from the 1990s are unavailable.

9 Washington, DC is where I live and work. Temporal constraints prevent me from traveling to Albania and Moldova to extract valuable material from newspaper archives.

10 Admittedly, Koha Jonë, one of the most popular Albanian newspapers, is also available but microfilm holdings only go backto 2001.

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negative light. Rilindja Demkratike, for example, is the official

newspaper of Berisha’s Democratic Party, and therefore tended to

portray him as a benevolent and incorruptible president who did

everything he could to break with Albania’s dark communist past.

By contrast, Zëri i Popullit, is the offical organ of the Socialist

Party, which was the largest opposition party during Berisha’s

rule and opposed him on many issues. Zëri i Popullit therefore

portrayed the president of Albania as a power-hungry tyrant whose

rule bred corruption and crime.

Jurnal de Chișinău, a Moldovan newspaper founded in 1999, is

highly critical of Voronin and consistently supports European

integration. It is also highly supportive of the Liberal

Democratic Party, which opposed the Communists between 2007 and

2009 and became the largest party of the governing coalition

following the ouster of the communists in 2009. Although

Moldavskie vedomosti is a Russian-language newspaper, it was also

highly critical of the communist government, particularly for its

abandonment of rapprochement with Russia and for failing to

overcome the country’s economic problems. By contrast, Nezavisimaa

Moldova was much more supportive of President Voronin and attacked

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the pro-European opposition for destabilizing the political

situation in the country.

Literature review

If one looks at the literature on the presidents themselves,

one may be disappointed by the dearth of works focused

specifically on the political careers of Sali Berisha and

Vladimir Voronin. In fact, there have been no biographies or

autobiographies of the two postcommunist presidents.11 At the

11 This is surprising given the controversies surrounding the extensive powers exercised by the two postcommunist leaders. A number of other postcommunist presidents who were considerably less powerful have had the privilege of being the subjects of numerous biographies, and some have also written autobiographies.See, for example, works written about and by Guntis Ulmanis and Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, the first two post-Soviet presidents of Latvia: Ausma Cimdiņa, In the Name of Freedom: President of Latvia Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga (Riga: Jumava, 2003); Māris Čaklais, Izaicinājums: Pirmā Latvijas Valsts prezidente Vaira Vīķe-Freibera [translation: The Challenge: Latvia’s first female president Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga] (Riga: Pētergailis, 2003); Sanita Jembergs, VVF: Vairas Vīķes-Freibergas politiskā biografija [translation: VVF: The political biography of Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga] (Riga: Dienas grāmata, 2008); Lato Lapsa, Va(i)ras virtuve [translation: The kitchen of Vaira/power] Māris Rūks, Īsvēsture: Patiesā Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga [translation: A Short History: The real Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga]; Jānis Ūdris, Gunta Ulmaņa Vertikāle [translation: The Vertical of Guntis Ulmanis] (Riga: Jumava, 2009); Guntis Ulmanis, No tevis jau neprasa daudz [translation: They don’t ask much from you already] (Riga: Likteņstāti, 1995); Guntis Ulmanis, Mans prezidenta laiks [translation: My time as president] (Riga: Preses

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same time, scholars have examined the recent histories of the two

countries, although the number of studies is not abounding. In

general, one can notice that some authors state the existence of

the unusual power arrangement in Albania and Moldova quite

explicitly. However, few describe the specific methods that the

presidents used to circumvent the constitutional limitations on

their power. No scholar has so far provided an explanation of why

Berisha and Voronin decided to become the presidents, not the

prime ministers, of their respective countries.

A limited number of scholars have studied the presidency of

Sali Berisha as part of their works on the history of Albania.

Some of the most notable authors on recent Albanian history

include Elez Biberaj, Mirella Bogdani, Georges Castellan, Bernd

Jurgen Fischer, Derek Hall, Edwin E. Jacques, John Loughlin,

James Pettifer, and Miranda Vickers.12 These scholars provide

nams, 1999); Nadine Vitols-Dixon, A Life’s Journey: Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga (Riga: Pētergailis, 2006).

12 The works of these authors include the following: Elez Biberaj, Albania in Transition: The Rocky Road to Democracy (Boulder: WesviewPress, 1998); Elez Biberaj, “Albania: The Challenges of Transition,” in Central & East European Politics: From Communism to Democracy, third edition edited by Sharon L. Wolchik and Jane Leftwich Curry (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 407-431;

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insight into Berisha’s presidency, including how he came to power

in the turbulent time after the downfall of the one-party

communist system. Their accounts are helpful in understanding the

challenges that Berisha had to face and the methods that he

resorted to in order to get what he wanted. Most of these authors

mention the wrangling between the Democrats and the Socialists

over the constitution of the country but they do not say why the

Democrats were so fixated on expanding presidential powers.

However, some underscore the fact that Berisha was the most vocal

supporter of granting greater powers to the Albanian president.13

Mirella Bogdani and John Loughlin, Albania and the European Union: The Tumultuous Journey Toward Integration and Accession (London: I.B. Taurus, 2007); Georges Castellan, Histoire de l’Albanie et des Albanais (Crozon: Editions Armeline, 2002); Bernd Jurgen Fischer, “Albania since 1989: the Hoxhaist legacy,” in Central and Southeast European Politics since1989, edited by Sabrina P. Ramet (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2010), 421-443; Derek Hall, Albania and the Albanians (London: Pinter Reference, 1994); Edwin E. Jacques, The Albanians: An Ethnic History from Prehistoric Times to the Present, volume 2 (Jefferson: McFarland& Company, Inc., Publishers, 1995); James Pettifer and Miranda Vickers, The Albanian Question: Reshaping the Balkans (London: I.B. Taurus, 2007); Miranda Vickers and James Pettifer, Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity (London: Hurst & Company, 1997); Miranda Vickers, The Albanians: A Modern History, fourth edition (London: I.B. Taurus, 2014).

13 Elez Biberaj notes that the 1991 Law on the Main Constitutional Provisions was amended by parliament in 1992 to expand the powers of the president. He also notes that “although

12

It should also be noted that all of these scholars are highly

critical of Berisha, noting that he frequently resorted to

authoritarian methods and failed to curb crime in the country.

Elez Biberaj’s book examines how Berisha was able to

consolidate his own power, at the expense of democratic

consolidation. Biberaj is one of the few authors who underscore

the fact that Berisha’s de-facto powers overshadowed his

constitutional prerogatives as a president in a parliamentary

republic. He suggests that Berisha used his personal authority

within the Democratic Party to prevent dissent and appoint

loyalists to important positions such as those of prime minister

and party leader. He also notes that the Socialists, being

critical of the de-facto powers vested in the president, put real

power into the hands of the prime minister after Berisha’s

downfall in 1997.14 Miranda Vickers’s and James Pettifer’s

the constitutional provisions provided for a parliamentary republic, during Berisha’s tenure as president (1992-1997), Albanian developed a hybrid presidential-parliamentary system,” and compares Berisha’s powers to those of Boris Yeltsin and Lech Wałęsa. He does not explain why Berisha did not choose the path of least resistance—to become prime minister in a parliamentary country. See Biberaj, “Albania,” 411-412.

14 Biberaj, Albania in Transition, 157-176;350-359.

13

Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity contains some of the most

negative evaluations of Berisha, who is compared to Radovan

Karadžic and blamed for creating an atmosphere of general

harassment and stress.15 Vickers and Pettifer were criticized by

Robert C. Austin, who noted that their work was “a victim to the

dreadful rumor mill that has been so much a part of Albania’s

catastrophic transition period,” and attacked the authors for

relying on speculation and dubious sources to paint an

excessively negative picture of Albania’s first postcommunist

president.16 At the same time, one cannot say that most of these

works are biased in favor of the Socialist Party, as most authors

note that Fatos Nano, Berisha’s chief rival during this period,

did little to improve the quality of democratic governance after

coming to power in 1997.17

15 Vickers and Pettifer (1997), 82, 280.

16 Robert C. Austin, “Historical Dictionary of Albania/Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 42, no. 1/2 (2000): 212-213.

17 Fischer provides the one of most explicit critiques of the two principle adversaries of Albanian politics in the 1990s. “...like Berisha,” he writes, “Nano was a creature of his age andwas immured in Albania’s political culture of revenge and authoritarianism.” See Fischer, 432-433.

14

It is also worth mentioning Owen Pearson’s compendium on

Albanian history that provides contemporary accounts from

periodicals and other primary sources.18 Although Pearson devotes

considerable attention to British-Albanian relations and

developments in Kosovo, some sources provide details of Berisha’s

persecutory campaigns against his political opponents and former

senior communist party officials as well as the street violence

in 1990-1992 and 1997. Unfortunately, Pearson does not provide

any sources that explain why the parliamentary republic of

Albania had such a strong president and why Berisha decided to

become president in 1992.

One of the most well-known scholars on contemporary Albanian

politics and history is Fatos Tarifa, a sociologist who served as

the country’s ambassador to the Netherlands and the United

18 Owen Pearson, Albania as Dictatorship and Democracy: From Isolation to the Kosovo War 1946-1998, vol. 2 of Albania in the Twentieth Century: A History (London: I.B. Taurus, 2006). “Impressed by the paucity of sourceson Albania,” the author, who had been a member of the British Friends of Albania Committee during World War II, began compilingprimary and secondary sources on the country in 1947. For the 1990s, his sources include The Daily Telegraph, The Annual Register, The Times, The Guardian, The Sunday Mirror, The Independent, and Keesing’s Contemporary Archive. For full list of sources from the period, see Pearson, 707-708.

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States.19 Unfortunately, most of his works are unavailable in the

United States, although he has made one of his works, Politics as

grammar and metaphor available on the ResearchGate social network.20

Tarifa lambastes Berisha’s undemocratic methods and notes that he

is a charismatic, demagogic, effective, and Machiavellian

politician, calling him an “Hugo Chavez without oil.”21

19 Peter Lucas, “Foreword,” in Fatos Tarifa, To Albania, with Love (Lanham: Hamilton, 2007), xiii-xiv; Jay Weinstein, Bavjola Shatro, and Klementin Mile, Socialogija shqiptare dhe profil i studiuesit Fatos Tarifa (Tirana: Ombra GVG, 2011).

20 Fatos Tarifa, Politika si gramatikë dhe metaforë (Tirana: Onufri, 2014), ResearchGate, accessed March 3, 2015, http://www.researchgate.net/publication/263967489_Politika_si_gramatike_dhe_metafore_Politics_as_Grammar_and_Metaphor. Other imporatnt works on Albanian politics include The First Decade and After:Albania’s Democratic Transition and Consolidation in the Context of Southeast Europe,coauthored by Max Spoor, To Albania, with Love, and Politics and History (Poliktika dhe Historia).

21 One chapter of the book, “Authoritarianism without oil” (Autoritarizëm pa naftë) is a reprint of Tarifa’s earlier articlewhich he co-authored with Peter Lucas. See Fatos Tarifa and PeterLucas, “Albania: Authoritarianism without oil,” Mediterranean Quarterly 17, no. 2 (2006): 32-39. Tarifa also criticizes Fatos Nano, under whom he had served as ambassador, for being a Machiavellian politician who ran his government on the basis of pragmatism, favoritism, and clientilism. However, he explicitly states that Nano, unlike Berisha, is not an authoritarian leader.Tarifa (2014) , 26; Tarifa and Lucas, 33.

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A number of authors have looked at the presidency of Sali

Berisha within the context of democratization studies. Anne Case

examined the relationship between block grants to communes and

their support for the Democratic Party, noting that Berisha was

the decision-maker in the process of allocating funds to

communes.22 Pavel Kandel notes that the political life of

postcommunist Albania under President Sali Berisha bore many

resemblances to post-Soviet Russia. However, Kandel underscores

the fact that Berisha failed in his attempt to push through his

constitution that would have expanded presidential powers.23 Also

worth mentioning is Blendi Kojsiu’s work that analyzes

conflicting discourses of corruption in Albania. In it, Sali

22 Case found a positive relationship between the commune’s level of support for the Democrats and the funding that it subsequently received, suggesting that Berisha distributed funds to reward his constituents. See Anne Case, “Election goals and income redistribution: Recent evidence from Albania,” European Economic Review 45, no. 3 (2001): 405-423.

23 Berisha’s failure is contrasted with what the author implies was Boris Yeltsin’s success in 1993. It is also notable that Kandel does not even mention the fact that Berisha served asAlbania’s president during the 1990s, instead characterizing the system as “Berisha’s regime.” See Pavel Kandel’, “’Balkanskaa’ demokratia meždu istoriej i “tranzitologiej,” Vlast’, no. 10 (2007): 29-20.

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Berisha is portrayed as the main propagator of the

“anticommunist” discourse of “red corruption” while at the same

time being the main target of the “antiauthoritarian” discourse

of “blue corruption” advanced by the Socialists.24

Some scholars included Sali Berisha in their general

examination of postcommunist politics in Eastern Europe.25

24 Blendi Kojsiu, A Discourse Analysis of Corruption: Instituting Neoliberalism Against Corruption in Albania, 1998-2005 (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2014), 49-73.

25 Thomas Carothers underscores similarties between Berisha and Slovak Prime Minister Vladimir Mečiar, noting that they both had very limited tolerance for opposition and openly flirted withautocracy. He holds Berisha (along with a number of other postcommunist leaders) responsible for the democratic retrenchment the country experienced in the 1990s. M. Steven Fishlooks at Sali Berisha’s rule within the context of other postcommunist presidents, noting that the Albanian president had the habit of trying to break out of constitutional constrains andeffectively combined the powers of president and prime minister and suggesting that his prerogatives are comparable to those of Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way also draw analogies between Berisha and other leaders with varying degrees of authoritarian tendencies (such as Ter-Petrosyan, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Georgian Presidents Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Mikheil Saakashvili, Mečiar, Malawian President Bakili Muluzi, and Zambian President Frederick Chiluba). See Thomas Carothers, “Democracy Without Illusions,” Foreign Affairs 76, no. 1 (1997): 85-99; M. Steven Fish, “The Inner Asian anomaly: Mongolia’s democratization in comparative perspective,” Communistand Post-Communist Studies 34, no. 3 (2001): 329; Fish, “Creative

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However, they did not look into the ways in which Berisha was

able to circumvent the constitutional limitations on his power

and, more importantly, why he decided to become the president of

a parliamentary country.

Even fewer scholars have examined the presidency of Vladimir

Voronin. Most studies of the recent political history of Moldova

have been focused on the communist government’s emphasis on a

separate Moldovan identity, the ambiguity of its foreign policy,

or the futile attempts to resolve the Transnistrian conflict.

Henry Hale’s aforementioned work on patronal politics

provides an examination of how Voronin managed to stay at the top

of his pyramid throughout the eight years of his rule.26 He de-

emphasizes the importance of the Communist Party’s strict

hierarchy and discipline, noting instead that Voronin largely

relied on his role as a patron by promoting little known

politicians to important positions in power in order to ensure

their obedience and inability to challenge him.

Constitutions,” 186; Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 82.

26 Hale, 372-421.

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The most notable study that directly addresses the research

question of this project is Steven D. Roper’s article on the

paradoxical expansion of presidential prerogatives in Moldova

immediately following its conversion from a semipresidential to a

parliamentary system of government.27 Roper looks at the

circumstances in which Voronin came to power and concludes that

the Moldovan president derives his presidential authority from

being the leader of the PCRM,28 which held more than half of the

seats in parliament during his tenure. He contrasts Voronin’s

ability to muster parliamentary support for his executive and

legislative initiatives with the relative impotence of his

predecessors, Mircea Snegur and Petru Lucinschi, who had to deal

with unstable and ever-changing parliamentary coalitions riven by

personal and ideological rivalries. As such, Roper flips Thomas

A. Baylis’s argument that direct presidential elections do not

27 Roper, “From semi-presidentialism to parliamentarism,” 113-126; Steven D. Roper, “Post-Soviet Moldova’s Identity and ForeignPolicy,” in Europe’s Last Frontier? Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine between Russia and the European Union, edited by Oliver Schmidtke and Serhy Yekelchyk (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 79-96.

28 The acronym derives from the party's full name (Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova) in Romanian—Partidul Comuniștilor din Republica Moldova.

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always produce strong presidents on its head by noting that the

indirect election of presidents does not necessarily entail

ceremonial or weak presidencies if the president controls the

parliamentary majority.29 In later analyses of post-Soviet

Moldova, Roper looked at how Voronin attempted to shape a

balanced foreign policy that included closer cooperation with

Euro-Atlantic structures without completely alienating Russia.30

Other notable scholars who have done research focused

specifically on the political system under President Voronin

include Claus Neukirch and Paul Q. Quinlan.31 Their work is

particularly helpful for understanding how Voronin exercised his

power. Neukirch’s paper provides a look at the party system of

the country and notes that Voronin was able to control the

29 See Thomas A. Baylis, “Presidents versus Prime Minister: Shaping Executive Authority in Eastern Europe,” World Politics 48, no. 3 (1996): 297-323.

30 Steven D. Roper, “Moldova since 1989,” in Central and SoutheastEuropean Politics since 1989, edited by Sabrina P. Ramet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010): 472-491.

31 Claus Neukirch, “The Republic of Moldova 120 days after the2001 Parliamentary Elections,” Working Paper 3 (Hamburg: Center for OSCE Research, 2001); Paul Q. Quinlan, “Back to the Future: An Overview of Moldova Under Voronin,” Demokratizatsiya 12, no. 4 (2004): 485-504.

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technocratic government that he had put in place thanks to the

PCRM’s parliamentary majority. Although at the time of writing

Neukirch did not foresee any major threats to democracy coming

from Voronin, Quinlan, who had the benefit of hindsight, examines

the steps that Voronin and the PCRM took in order to establish

their control over the media and the judiciary. Both authors note

that the president played the decisive role in shaping the

country’s foreign affairs and that Voronin’s foreign policy was

largely driven by pragmatism and economics rather than ideology.

The presidency of Vladimir Voronin has also been examined

within the context of other postcommunist political systems.

These included studies by Constantin Chira-Pascanut, Erik S.

Herron, Ryan Kennedy, Oliver Schmidtke, and Andrei Tarnauski.32

32 Erik S. Herron, Elections and Democracy After Communism (New York:Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; Ryan Kennedy, “Moldova,” in The Colour Revolutions in the Former Soviet Republics, edited by Donnacha O Beachain and Abel Polese (London: Routledge, 2010), 62-82; Oliver Schmidtke and Constantin Chira-Pascanut, “The Promise of Europe: Moldova and the Process of Europeanization,” in Europe’s Last Frontier?Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine between Russia and the European Union (New York:Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 133-156; Andrei Tarnauski, “The Peculiarities of Party Politics in Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine:Institutionalization or Marginalization?” in Political Parties in Post-Soviet Space, edited by Anatoly Kulik and Susanna Pshizova (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2005), 41-58.

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Most of these scholars noted that Voronin’s Moldova was

surprisingly stable compared to other post-Soviet regimes, a

factor explained by the economic growth that the country

experienced in the 2000s, as well Voronin’s ability to appeal to

both ethnic Russians and Moldovans and the opposition’s inability

to form a united front against PCRM.

Although his book was published before Voronin became

president and was largely focused on interethnic relations and

the formation of a Moldovan identity, Charles King is also worth

mentioning as he analyzed the political cleavages that emerged

following the collapse of communism. He noted that the success of

PCRM can be attributed to the fact that economic matters replaced

language and ethnicity as the main dividing lines of Moldovan

politics as well as the PCRM’s ability to move across ethnic

lines to win the support of ethnic Moldovans dissatisfied with

their abysmal living standards. He also contrasted the unity of

PCRM with the divisiveness of the centrist and center-right

23

alliances and blocs that controlled the government in the late

1990s.33

This brief overview of the available literature demonstrates

that many scholars noted the unusual concentration of power in

the hands of the president in Berisha’s Albania and Voronin’s

Moldova despite the fact that the two republics were in theory

parliamentary. However, only Roper and Hale specifically focused

on this seemingly paradoxical arrangement. Their arguments can

be extended to the case of Albania under Berisha, as one could

argue that both Voronin and Berisha derived their influence from

being the de-jure (in the case of the former) or de-facto leaders

(in the case of the former) of the party or patronal pyramid that

was in control of the legislature. However, no scholar has so far

been able to explain why Berisha and Voronin chose to become

presidents (rather than prime ministers) in the first place.

The theoretical literature also provides some important

concepts that could be used to analyze the Albanian and Moldovan

systems of government. However, its excessive focus on

33 Charles King, The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2000), 151-164.

24

constitutionally prescribed arrangements, rather than political

praxis, should be avoided. I will try to overcome this

shortcoming by adopting a more inductive approach in examining

the differences and similarities between the parliamentary

systems of government of Eastern Europe.

Albania: “Democratic” Presidentialism in a Parliamentary Country

At the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century,

Albania was the sole bastion of unreformed communism in Europe.

For decades, it had been ruled by Enver Hoxha, a ruthless

Stalinist dictator who terrorized his population with the

Albanian secret police (Segurimi) and severed political and

economic ties not only with the capitalist world but also with

the Soviet Union, China, and Yugoslavia.34 His death in 1985 did

not lead to any radical political or economic reforms the likes

of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika, although the dire economic

situation forced Ramiz Alia, Hoxha’s successor as first secretary

of the PPSH,35 to take baby steps toward economic liberalization

34 Vickers, 177-198. Admittedly, Hoxha can also be credited with industrializing the nation, promoting gender equality, and significantly reducing illiteracy. See Jacques, 528-530, 545.

35 The acronym stems from the Albanian name of the Albanian Party of Labor—Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë.

25

and decentralization.36 Yet despite these minor reforms, the

leading role of the PPSH, a communist party that rejected any

deviation from a strict interpretation of Marxism-Leninism and

continued to accept the basic tenets of Stalinism, was still

codified in the constitution.37 Nevertheless, the anticommunist

groundswell of 1989, which ended with the downfall of communist

regimes throughout Eastern Europe and the violent deaths of the

Ceaușescus in Romania, indicated to Alia and other senior

communist officials that their political, if not physical,

survival was contingent on an immediate ending of the old policy

of self-sufficiency, strict censorship, and political monism.38

At the same time, the Albanian population, particularly students

36 Castellan, 99-100; Hall, 116-118; Vickers, 201-202.

37 Kushtetuta e Republikës Popullore Socialiste e Shqipërisë, Ligj no. 5506, December 28, 1976, accessed April 12, 2015, http://eudo-citizenship.eu/NationalDB/docs/ALB%20Kushtetuta%20e%20Republikes%20Socialiste%20Popullore%20e%20Shqiperise%201976.pdf; D’ërd’ Reti, “Smena obsestvennogo stroa v Albanii (1989-1992 gg.): Agonia “proletarskoj diktatury,” translated from Hungarian into Russian by Č. B. Želickij, Imagines mundi: al’manah issledovanij vseobsej istorii XVI-XX vv., no. 7 (2010): 218-247, available at Ural’skij federal’nyj universitet imeni pervogo Prezidenta Rossii B. N. El’cina, accessed April 25, 2015, http://elar.urfu.ru/bitstream/10995/4953/2/im-09-7-2010.pdf.

38 Vickers, 204.

26

and intellectuals, became aware of what had happened in the rest

of Eastern Europe and, in light of the abysmal living conditions

they had to endure, began to openly voice their dissatisfaction

with the status quo.39

One of the most prominent intellectuals criticial of the

communist system’s intolerance of dissent was Sali Berisha, a

renowned cardiologist, who had been entrusted with treating the

country’s top communist leaders.40 Although he was not the only

intellectual to criticize the slow pace of reform, he made a name

for himself by openly calling for political pluralism and an end

to PPSH monopoly on power.41 Following the defection of Ismail

39 Biberaj, Albania in Transition, 32-35; Jacques, 644-647; Vickers, 204-205. The population’s dissatisfaction was expressed in sporadic protests and defections to foreign embassies in the summer of 1990.

40 Biberaj, Albania in Transition, 58; 67. Pettifer and Vickers (1997), 10-32. Berisha, who had studied in Paris as part of a UNESCO fellowship program in the late 1970s, was also a member ofthe Copenhagen-based European Medical Research Science Committee and published articles in Western medical journals. See, for example, Sali Berisha, Adnan Kastrati, Artan Goda, and Ylli Popa,“Optimal value of filling pressure in the right side of the heartin acute right ventricular infarction,” British Heart Journal 63, no. 2(1990): 98-102.

41 Biberaj, 55. Berisha was also the first to make the case for political pluralism in print when he published an article

27

Kadare, Albania’s most famous writer and intellectual, to France,

Berisha, along with Tirana Univeristy economist Gramoz Pashko,

emerged as the leading dissident intellectuals of the country.42

In December 1990, Tirana University became the site of

violent student protests, initially triggered by deteriorating

living standards. Alia, who had recently proposed political

reforms that gave the appearance of ending PPSH monopoly on

power, asked Berisha, whom he believed to be a popular figure

among the students, to negotiate with the protesters. Berisha

agreed, but used the situation to his own advantage by joining

the protests and calling on the students to demand political

pluralism. This development forced the Central Committee and the

titled “Democracy and Humanism—an inseparable pair” in September 1990. See Sali Berisha, “Demokracia dhe humanizmi—binom i pandarë,” Bashkimi, September 17, 1990 (an excerpt of the article is available in Biberaj, 56).

42 Admittedly, one can hardly call Kadare, who had been on relatively good terms with Alia prior to his defection, a dissident, although some of his works failed to pass muster with Albania’s strict censors in the 1970s. Kadare himself claimed that open dissidence in Hoxhaist Albania was immediately punishable by death and his books constituted a form a resistance. See Ben Ehrenreich, “Fates of State: Booker winner Ismail Kadare’s art of enigma,” New York Village Voice, November 1, 2005, accessed April 12, 2015, http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-11-01/vls/fates-of-state/

28

People’s Assembly to allow independent political parties.

Berisha, Pashko, and Azem Hajdari, the twenty-eight-year-old

leader of the student protesters, then hastily established their

own party—the Democratic Party—which they were able to register

without a hitch.43 In the meantime, the PPSH published its own

draft of the constitution that recognized private property,

guaranteed civil rights, and separated party and state

institutions. One of the most important state institutions

envisioned by the draft, the presidency, was vested with

extensive powers. The president was allowed to veto legislation,

abrogate “unlawful or irregular acts” of the Council of

Ministers, ministries, and local or district authorities, and to

preside over meetings of the Council of Ministers. The president

was also designated as the commander-in-chief of the armed

forces, the chairperson of the Defense Council and the Supreme

Council of Justice (allowing him/her to influence judicial

43 “Albania recognizes first opposition party,” Associated Press,December 20, 1990. Biberaj, Albania in Transition, 66-70; David Binder, “Formation of an opposition party announced at a rally inAlbania,” The New York Times, December 13, 1990; Paul Holmes, “Tens of thousands form independent party in communist Albania,” Reuters News, December 12, 1990; Jacques, 666-667; Pettifer and Vickers (1997), 33-54; Vickers, 207-209.

29

appointments and dismissals). Although the president’s powers

were vast, he was to be elected indirectly—by a two-thirds

majority of the People’s Assembly.44

The concessions made by the PPSH failed to placate students

and workers as violent protests continued to erupt throughout the

country. Fatal clashes occurred between procommunist security

forces and prodemocracy demonstrators, many of whom fled the

country.45 In the meantime, the PPSH itself was becoming

increasingly split between Hoxhaist hardliners, led by Hoxha’s

widow Nexmije, former premier Adil Çarçani, and PPSH politburo

member Xhelil Gjoni, and reformists, led by writer Spiro Dede and

thirty-nine-year old economist Fatos Nano, whom Alia appointed to

replace Çarçani in February 1990. Alia attempted to contain the

chaos by assuming personal control over the country and creating

44 Nicholas Pano, “The process of democratization in Albania,”in Politics, power, and the struggle for democracy in South-East Europe, edited byKaren Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 305.

45 David Binder, “Political violence kills 5 in Albania,” The New York Times, February 26, 1991; Fischer, 424; Blaine Harden, “3 Die as Vote Protesters, Police Clash in Albania; Opposition Backers Claim Election Fraud,” The Washington Post, April 3, 1991; Vickers, 209-216.

30

a nine-member presidential council dominated by hardliners.46 The

PPSH overwhelmingly won the first multiparty parliamentary

elections held in March-April 1990, in large part because it was

better prepared (thanks to its administrative resources) and was

still supported by voters in the south and the countryside, many

of whom were intimidated by Hoxhaist paramilitaries and feared

that Democrats would initiate the process of land restitution.

The major cities and the mountainous northern areas of the

country, however, supported the Democrats.47

46 Ramiz Alia, Unë, Ramiz Alia, dëshmoj për historinë, edited by BlerimShala, Llukman Halili, and Hazir Reka, 203; Biberaj, 92; Binder, “Political violence kills 5 in Albania.”; Zëri i Popullit, February 23, 1991, 1;

47 Castellan, 111-112; Klarita Gërxhani and Arthur Schram, “Albanian Political-Economics: Consequences of a Clan Culture,” LICOS Discussion Papers, no. 92 (2000), LICOS Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, https://www.econstor.eu/dspace/bitstream/10419/75439/1/749827890.pdf, accessed April 28, 2015: 2-3; Jacques, 673-674; Pano, 310-311. The PPSH won 56.17% of the vote, while the Democrats garnered 38.71%, thus securing 169 and 71 legislative seats, respectively. Only the Democratic Union of the Greek Minority, also known as Omónoia (“Concord” in Greek), and the National Committee of the War Veterans of the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War of the Albanian People (KKVLANÇPSH, an acronym derived from the Albanian name of the committee—Komiteti Kombëtar i Veteranëve të Luftës Antifashiste Nacional Çlirimtare të Popullit Shqiptar) won an additional six seats in the People’s Assembly. Political

31

One of the first items on the agenda of the newly elected

parliament was the adoption of a new constitution. Although PPSH

deputies had the necessary two-thirds majority to push through

the December 1990 draft, they agreed to some of the changes

proposed by the Democrats in an attempt to reduce interparty

tensions. Nevertheless, the Democrats and some reformist PPSH

members rejected the revised draft, as they wanted a weaker

president and a stronger parliament. PPSH eventually agreed to a

provisional constitutional law—titled the Main Constitutional

Provisions (DKK48)—that guaranteed political pluralism and the

equality of state, collective, and private property; prohibited

party activity within the ministries of internal affairs,

justice, and defense; and expanded the powers of the People’s

differences between the north and south can be explained by the historical rivalry between the northern Ghegs, who had maintainedtribal customs and a certain degree of independence from Ottoman rule, and the southern Tosks, whose social organization was basedon villages and who experienced greater Ottoman influence. Since the PPSH was dominated by Tosks (Ramiz Alia, a Gheg, was a notable exception), the south was its traditional power base, while the north tended to support the Democrats, whose leader, Sali Berisha, was a Gheg. See Biberaj, 15-16; Vickers, 156.

48 Dispozita Kryesore Kushtetuese.

32

Assembly at the expense of the president.49 It came as no

surprise that Alia, who was already the country’s titular head of

state as Chairman of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, was

elected president. In accordance with the stipulation that the

president was to “represent the whole unity of the people,” Alia

resigned from his PPSH posts, including that of first

secretary.50 For Alia, the net result of these changes was a loss

of authority, as he was no longer the leader of the ruling party

and his power as president was not as expansive as he had

49 The president could not longer abrogate the actions of local and district authorities and take part in cabinet meetings.The People’s Assembly could now overcome the president’s veto (orrequest for reexamination, as the DKK termed it) with a simple majority. These prerogatives were more in line with the powers granted to presidents in parliamentary republics such as Germany and Italy. See Biberaj, 103, Pano, 313, Për Dispozitat Kryesore kushtetuese, Ligj no. 7491, April 29, 1991, Gazeta Zyrtare (April 1991): 145. For a comparison with other parliamentary presidents,see Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, translated by Christian Tomuschat, David P. Currie, Donald P. Kommers, and the Language Service of the German Bundestag, Deutscher Bundestag, November 2012, accessed April 14, 2015, https://www.bundestag.de/blob/284870/ce0d03414872b427e57fccb703634dcd/basic_law-data.pdf, art. 54-61; Constitution of the Italian Repubic, Senato della Repubblica, accessed April 14, 2015, https://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costituzione_inglese.pdf, art. 83-91.

50 Biberaj, 101; Pano, 313

33

originally envisioned. The changes that took place in early 1991

also increased the powers of the prime minister.

Although the PPSH was able to secure the support of the

opposition to pass the DKK, it got the cold shoulder when it

invited opposition parties to form a coalition cabinet.51 Alia

reappointed Nano as prime minister, but the country soon became

ungovernable as industrial workers and miners, most of whom now

supported the Democrats, initiated a general strike in May. The

Nano cabinet resigned in June and was replaced by a coalition

cabinet (headed by former food minister Ylli Bufi) in which the

PPSH only controlled half of the seats.52 At the same time, the

PPSH itself was radically transformed during its 10th Congress,

which changed the party’s name to the Socialist Party, jettisoned

Marxism-Leninism in favor of social democracy, and elected Nano

as party president.

51 Pano, 315.

52 Twelve seats were held by the PPSH, seven by the Democrats,while representatives of the Republican, Social Democratic, and Agrarian Parties shared the five remaining seats. Democrat GramozPashko was appointed deputy prime minister. See Pano, 314.

34

Although Bufi’s coalition government succeeded in getting

Albania to join the World Bank, the IMF, the EBRD, and the CSCE

and initiated a program of gradual economic liberalization, it

was largely unable to reinvigorate the economy and stop the

spread of crime throughout the country. Berisha, who had been

elected president of the Democratic Party, accused the Socialist

nomenclature of trying to benefit from the partial nature of the

privatization process. He also charged the coalition government

with failing to offer a comprehensive land privatization program

and to curb the influence of hardliners. Cofounder Pashko argued

that the Democrats’ cooperation with the Socialist government was

productive and attacked Berisha for his confrontational stance.

The continued deterioration of the socioeconomic situation in the

country, as well as accusations that humanitarian grants were

being pocketed by corrupt officials, played into Berisha’s hands.

In November 1991, the Democratic Party presented an ultimatum to

President Alia, demanding new parliamentary elections in 1992,

the trial of individuals responsible for the deaths of Democratic

party activists during a scuffle in Shkodër, the removal of

hardliners from important positions in the media, and the arrest

35

of Nexhmije Hoxha and some former PPSH Politburo members in

exchange for continued participation in the coalition government.

Although Alia took steps to comply with these demands, Berisha

pilloried the Socialists for hindering democratization and

economic reform and withdrew the party’s support from the

cabinet. This decision put him at odds with the more moderate

leaders of the Democratic Party, such as Pashko, Hajdari, Neritan

Ceka, and Arben Imami. Ceka publically quit the party in protest,

but this move did not have a significant effect on the public,

which became increasingly supportive of the more radical

solutions proposed by Berisha.53 Alia appointed an interim

government (led by former food minister Vilson Ahmeti) of

independent technocrats to maintain a modicum of order in the

increasingly chaotic country, in which thousands of Albanians

were driven to steal or emigrate as productive economic activity

came to a standstill and unemployment and inflation skyrocketed.

Thus less a year after winning a majority of seats in the

People’s Assembly, the Socialists lost the support of the

population, which translated into a defeat at the polls in March

53 Biberaj, 121-127. Pano, 317-318; Reti, 235-236.

36

1992. They won less than a quarter of the votes, securing 38 (out

of 140) seats in the People’s Assembly. By contrast, the

Democrats, who had also received considerable funding from the

United States, won more than 60 percent of the vote and captured

92 parliamentary seats. With the backing of the Social Democrats

and the Republicans, the Democrats had the necessary two-thirds

majority to make constitutional changes.54 Such a majority also

allowed the Democrats and their allies to unseat the ruling

president, who was now seen as a vestige of an old era. At first,

it was unclear whether Berisha wanted to succeed him as president

or become the new prime minister.55 However, merely a day after

Alia resigned as president, Berisha announced his intention to

54 Biberaj, 136; Nicolas Miletitch, “Albanians hail new era ascommunists swept from power,” Agence France-Presse, March 23, 1992; “Opposition crushes communists with 92 of 140 seats,” Agence France-Presse, March 30, 1992; “Opposition wins close to two-thirdsof Albanian vote,” Reuters News, March 23, 1992; Pano, 332.

55 Douglas Hamilton, “Ex-communist Alia calls for speed-up of reforms,” Reuters News, March 24, 1992. Berisha himself said that he could not rule out the possibility of Ismail Kadare returning and becoming Albania’s president. See Nicolas Miletitch, “Albanian victors ‘will form coalition government,’” Agence France-Presse, March 24, 1992.

37

succeed him.56 The leaders of the more moderate faction of the

Democratic Party—Pashko, Hajdari, and Imami—had hoped to become

the new prime minister, parliamentary speaker, or party

chairman.57 However, much to their chagrin, the Democratic Party,

in which the National Council remained firmly loyal to Berisha’s

radical course, spurned their bids. In fact, none of the three

were even represented in the new government. The Democratic Party

selected archaeologist and former deputy speaker Aleksandër Meksi

as prime minister, former anti-Hoxhaist dissident Pjetër Arbnori

as speaker, and thirty-one-year-old party secretary Eduard

Selami, who had become Berisha’s right-hand man during the

election campaign, as party chairman.58 The moderates then began

to show their discontent with Berisha. Hajdari accused the

government of censorship when it refused to broadcast an

56 “Alia resignation clears way for new parliament,” Agence France-Presse, April 3, 1992; Liam McDowall, “President of Albania Resigns Following Election Rout,” The Associated Press, April 3, 1992. Natasha Narayan, “Berisha to be Albania’s first non-communist president,” Reuters News, April 4, 1992.

57 In accordance with the DKK, Berisha resigned from the position as soon as he became president.

58 Biberaj, 139-142; Narayan; Pettifer and Vickers (1997), 75-85 .

38

interview in which he denounced Berisha’s reform of the armed

forces. He then left the country for the United States, prompting

Pashko to compare Hajdari’s departure with Kadare’s defection in

1990. Pashko also warned that a new dictatorship was “knocking at

Albania’s doors.” Hajdari then unexpectedly turned on Pashko,

calling his comparison of his US trip to Kadare’s defection

“absurd,” returned to Albania, and expressed his support for

Berisha’s policies in an apparent volte-face to save his position

within the Democratic Party. The turnaround allowed Hajdari to

remain in the party, while Pashko, Imami, and a number of other

prominent critics of Berisha were expelled by an extraordinary

session of the National Council in August. Pashko, Ceka and other

moderates then went on to create their own party, the Democratic

Alliance, but it never became a serious threat to Berisha on its

own.59 However, their expulsion demonstrated that Berisha did not

tolerate dissent within his own party and commanded support of

the National Council, which he rallied to get rid of enemies from

within. In 1995, for instance, he easily replaced party leader 59 Biberaj, 154-155; Pettifer and Vickers (1997), 85-89; FatosTarifa, “The Human Dimensions of De-Communization in Post-Communist Societies: The Case of Albania,” Helsinki Monitor 5 (1994):60-67; Zëri i Popullit, June 24, 1992, 1;

39

Selami with Health Minister Tritan Shehu after Selami suggested

that the posts of Democratic party leader and prime minister

should be combined and that the constitution should be adopted by

parliament.60

The most serious political challenge to Berisha’s rule,

however, came from the Socialist Party, whose electoral

performance rebounded during in the local elections of July

1992.61 The implementation of shock therapy entailed considerable

hardship for many people. Data on the geographical distribution

of unemployment as well as the allocation of block grants

suggests that Berisha gave preferential treatment to northerners,

many of whom still respected clan-based loyalties.62 Berisha’s

policies therefore alienated the south, the traditional power

base of the communists. Socialist leader Nano was able to exploit

the grievances of the south as well as of thousands of those who

had lost their jobs in the process of structural reform and

60 Pano, 340.

61 Overall, the Socialists managed to win the support of 40.91percent of voters, merely 2.34 percent less than what the Democrats won. Ibid., 323; Koha Jonë, August 10, 1992.

62 Case, 405-423; Gërxhani and Schram, 7-18.

40

privatization. He attacked Berisha not only for his economic

policies, but also for his revanchism against former communist

cadres and his growing authoritarianism.63 In 1993, Nano was

arrested and sentenced to prison for embezzlement whilst formally

remaining the leader of the Socialist Party. Many other notable

communist politicians, including Alia, had also been arrested and

sentenced to prison on charges of corruption and abuse of

authority. Although Berisha denied that these arrests were

politically motivated, critics charged him with using the courts

to damage the opposition.

Berisha also used the law and his authority within the party

to go after critically minded journalists, who he believed were

engaging in “irresponsible” criticism of his policies. In

September 1992, seven staff members of Rilindja Demokratike quit in

protest over the increasing censorship and growing preference for

“militancy” over professionalism. In July 1993, a right-wing

63 Biberaj, 157-159; Vickers, 225-226. One of Berisha’s initiatives was to replace communist-era judges and state prosecutors with hastily trained neophyte lawyers. Attorney General Maksim Haxhia, an appointee of Berisha, expressed his reservations about this program and was quickly dismissed in September 1992. See Pano,324-225.

41

journalist was sentenced to six months in prison for calling

Berisha “the assassin of the Albanian people.” A press law

enacted by parliament in 1993 restricted access to information

and subjected journalists to severe penalties for violating its

provisions. Many journalists were fined and even jailed for

violating this law.64

Thus from the point of view of patronal politics, Berisha

was able to consolidate his position within his own patronal

pyramid and to significantly undermine the influence of other

pyramids by jailing prominent opposition leaders and muzzling

dissent. Nevertheless, he was never able, or even intended, to

impose political monism to the extent that King Zog or Enver

Hoxha did before him. Journalists continued to criticize his

policies despite the risks that the new press law entailed.

Although many Albanians suffered from low living standards,

they were now allowed to leave the country to work abroad. The

64 The most notable case involved the alleged revelation of state secrets by the nonpartisan Koha Jonë, which the Democrats viewed as being pro-Socialist. The newspaper’s editor and one of his reporters were sentenced to prison but President Berisha pardoned them following protests at home and abroad. See Pano, 332-333.

42

macroeconomic stabilization, price liberalization, and

privatization programs that were carried out by Meksi’s

government (under the president’s orders) allowed Albanians to

establish businesses and earn their own money, which spurred the

economy out of the chaos of 1991-1992. Many Albanians credited

Berisha and the Democrats for getting rid of most of the

communist hurdles to private enterprise. At the same time,

Berisha’s laissez-faire approach also allowed some Albanians to

make a fortune by engaging in crime. The most notable examples of

such enterprises were human trafficking networks, rackets focused

on smuggling fuel into Yugoslavia, which was under a UN embargo,

and pyramid schemes. Although it is doubtful that Berisha himself

benefited from these criminal networks, there is evidence to

believe that some of his local subpatrons received kickbacks and

used crime networks to target the opposition.65 Local subpatrons

65 A notable example is that of Gjovalin Cekini, a young member of the Democratic Alliance. He was gunned down by the brother of the former police chief of Shkodër, who was alleged tobe involved in a local fuel smuggling outfit. Democratic AllianceSecretary-General Imami directly accused the Democratic Party supporters of shooting Cekini. See Vickers, 227; Zëri i Popullit, January 16, 1994. Berisha later admitted that his government tolerated oil smuggling to neighboring Yugoslavia. See Besar Likmeta, “Albania Smuggled Oil to Milosevic Regime: Prime

43

also distributed public sector jobs and benefits to supporters,

thus promoting cronyism over competition.66

Although Berisha possessed considerable informal authority,

he attempted to formalize his powers in a permanent

constitution.67 The draft constitution largely kept the

presidential prerogatives of the DKK intact and prescribed

indirect elections to this important post. However, it also

established the High Council of Justice—a judiciary institution

that was to be chaired by the president and was to include the

justice minister, the attorney general, the chairman of the

Supreme Court, and nine lawyers selected by the Supreme Court and

the attorney general’s office. The High Council of Justice was to

be solely responsible for the appointment, promotion, demotion,

discipline, and transfer of judges and state prosecutors at all

levels, thus giving the president and the executive a foothold in

Minister Sali Berisha admits he defied U.N.-imposed embargo,” OhmyNews, December 2, 2006, accessed April 28, 2015, http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=332383&rel_no=1.

66 Biberaj, 227.

67 Albania was also required to adopt a constitution by the end of 1994 in order to accede to the Council of Europe.

44

the judiciary. 68 The constitutional debates shattered the

coalition that existed between the Democrats and the Social

Democrats, who wanted a stronger parliament and a ceremonial

president. With the Social Democrats in alliance with the

Democratic Alliance, Berisha realized that he would not be able

to pass the draft through parliament and therefore put it to

referendum. The results disappointed the Democrats—the draft was

rejected by 54.89 percent of the electorate (41.7 percent voted

for it). The opposition was able to mount a successful media

campaign to discredit the draft for its failure to reduce the

powers of the president, whose government was accused of being

involved in corruption and criminal schemes. However, at least

one important reason for the draft’s overwhelming rejection by

the south of the country was the fact that it prevented non-

68 Draft Constitution of the Republic of Albania—November 1994: Part Three—High State Organs, Institute for Policy and Legal Studies, arts. 78-86, accessed April 28, 2015, http://www.ipls.org/constitution/draft94/cp3.html, Draft Constitution of the Republic of Albania—November 1994: Part Four—The Organization Of Justice And The Constitutional Court , Institute for Policy and Legal Studies, art. 109, accessed April 28, 2015, http://www.ipls.org/constitution/draft94/cp4.html. The full text of the constitutional draft is available in Rilindja Demokratike, October 6, 1994, 1-3.

45

native Albanians (and native Albanians who had resided in the

country for less than twenty years) from becoming the leaders of

large religious communities. This stipulation would have resulted

in the demotion of Anastasios Giannoulatos, the Greek-born

archbishop of the Albanian Orthodox Church, and the souring of

relations with Greece, where many southerners worked and sent

remittances home.69

The referendum signaled that Berisha’s position was tenuous

and prompted him to shore up the Democratic Party’s position in

the run-up to the 1996 election. He was able to do so by purging

the lower ranks of the party of the most corrupt officials and by

tinkering with electoral legislation. In 1995, the Democrats,

with Berisha’s backing, passed the “Genocide law,” which barred

anyone who held a position of power before March 31, 1991 and/or

served as an informant for the Sigurimi from holding any

governmental, parliamentary, and judicial office. The law was

69 Biberaj, 173-176; Pano, 326-329; Peshkopia, 47-48; Vickers,229-230. Ironically, Zëri i Popullit, the organ of the Socialist partypresented the argument that the constitutional draft infringed onreligious freedoms by preventing non-native Albanians from being the leaders of large religious communities. See Zëri i Popullit, October 23, 1994, 4.

46

supplemented with the “Law on the Verification of the Moral

Character of Officials and Other Persons Connected with the

Protection of the Democratic State,” which established a seven-

member commission to vet candidates for public office.70 The

“moral character” commission disqualified some notable opposition

leaders, such as Socialist party deputy chairmen Servet Pëllumbi

and Kastriot Islami and Social Democratic party chairman Skënder

Gjinushi. The new electoral law increased the proportion of

single-mandate district and allowed the president to decide on

the boundaries of these districts and the election date. Since

the government maintained control of television, it was able to

focus its coverage on the positive achievements of the Democrats

and of the threat of a return to communism in the event of a

Socialist victory. In addition, the country experienced rapid

economic growth, which many Albanians credited to President

Berisha and his government. All of these factors permitted the

Democrats to win more than two-thirds of the seats in the

People’s Assembly in the parliamentary election of May 1996. The

70 Seven members of the commission were appointed by the government while one was appointed by parliament. See Fletorja Zyrtare, no. 26 (1995): 1139-1143.

47

Socialists withdrew their representatives from polling stations

before they closed after hearing reports of widespread voter

irregularities. Their boycott was supported by other opposition

parties. Two days after the poll, the opposition gathered to

protest the results of the election in central Tirana but was

violently dispersed by the police. A report issued by the OSCE

later confirmed allegations of ballot rigging in multiple

districts. Although Berisha agreed to hold a rerun of the

election in 17 districts, he also attacked the OSCE for its

alleged bias in favor of the Socialists. Berisha’s response

strained his relationship with his traditional ally and sponsor,

the United States, which demanded a rerun of the entire election

and began reviewing its assistance programs to Albania. Thus,

although Berisha was able to strengthen his position at home to

the detriment of the opposition, he also lost considerable

support on the international arena, where he was now seen as an

authoritarian leader whose rule was not conducive to democratic

consolidation.71 71 Biberaj, 275-306; Pearson, 659-660; Për gjenocidin dhe krimet kundër njerëzimit kryer në Shqipëri gjatë sundimit komunist për motive politike, ideologjike dhe fetare, Ligj 8001, September 22, 1995, Fletorja Zyrtare (1995); Observation of the Parliamentary Elections Held in the Republic of Albania

48

Although the 1996 election allowed Berisha to control

all branches of power, his regime was soon brought down by an

economic crisis that almost sparked a civil war. By 1996, up to

75 percent of Albanian families had invested money in Ponzi

schemes that labeled themselves as investment funds. In late

1996, these schemes began to collapse, wiping out the savings of

thousands of Albanians. Protests soon erupted in the south of the

country, which had been hit hardest by the crisis. These protests

quickly turned violent and the army proved to be unable to subdue

them. Some disgruntled soldiers and officers joined the rebels

and began setting up “committees of national salvation.” By

March, President Berisha no longer controlled the south the

country. Although the rebels called on the president to resign

immediately, Berisha was reelected to a second term by the

Democrat-dominated parliament. However, as rebels made their way

to Tirana, Berisha realized that he had to make some compromises

May 26 and June 2, 1996, Organization for Security and Cooperation inEurope, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, June12, 1996, accessed April 29, 2015, http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/albania/13567?download=true; Pano, 340-346; Jane Perlez, “Riot Police Beat and Arrest Albania Election Protesters,” New York Times, May 29, 1996, 6; Rilindja Demokratike, May 30 and September 6, 1991, 1; Vickers, 231-232.

49

with the opposition. After meeting with opposition

representatives, Berisha agreed to appoint an interim coalition

government, amnesty the rebels, and hold an early parliamentary

election in June 1997. At the same time, the presence of southern

rebels near the capital prompted some northerners to set up their

own “committees of national salvation” and send armed men to

defend the president. Although a civil war was narrowly averted

and international peacekeepers arrived to Albania in April 1997,

Berisha and Bashkim Fino, a lesser-known socialist who had been

appointed chairman of the coalition government, could not

reestablish control over most of the country. The June 1997

election was therefore conducted in an atmosphere of terror as

southern rebels clashed with other gangs that supported the

president and both sides intimidated voters and candidates.

Berisha himself was nearly assassinated. The election was a

victory for Nano, who managed to leave prison in the absence of

law enforcement and was later pardoned by the president. The

Socialists won well over half of the seats in parliament, while

the Democrats secured only a quarter of the vote (and 15.5

percent of seats). The fact that Berisha had amassed so much

50

power just a year earlier turned out to be a drawback, as he had

no one else to blame for the collapse of the Ponzi schemes.

Although Berisha accused the Socialists of instigating the armed

rebellion, he accepted the results of the election and resigned

in July. Nano, who had promised to turn Albania into a true

parliamentary republic, became prime minister, while Rexhep

Meidani, the secretary-general of the Socialist party, became

president.72 The found of executive authority had clearly shifted

to the prime minister and his cabinet. The constitution of 1998

cemented a parliamentary form of government. Starting with

Meidani, all of Albania’s presidents have been ceremonial

figures, while the prime ministers have been responsible for the

country's foreign and internal policy. In 2005, Berisha made a

political comeback by leading the Democrats to a victory in the

72 Biberaj, 311-343; Pano, 346-348; Pettifer and Vickers (2007), 3-92; Rilindja Demokratike, February 21, 1997, 1, March 2, 1997, 1; Maksim Usin, “Na poroge graždanskoj vojny stoit Albania,” Izvestia, March 4, 1997; Ibid., “Matež albanskih vkladčikov budut podavlat’ siloj,” Izvestia, March 5, 1997; Ibid., “Albanskij president kapituliruet pered matežnikami,” Izvestia, March 11, 1997; “Sever Albanii brosaet vyzov vosstavšemu ugu,” Izvestia, March 21, 1997; Ibid., “Albancy golosuut za socialistov,”Izvestia, July 1, 1997; Vickers, 233-242; Zëri i Popullit, January 23, 1997, 3

51

parliamentary election but chose to become prime minister rather

than president.

The case of Albania illustrates how Berisha was able to

become the top patron of his patronal pyramid and how he used

that authority to both reign and govern the country. Since the

pyramid roughly coincided with the Democratic Party, the party

dominating the parliament and the government, Berisha was able to

implement most of his initiatives. Berisha was able to use both

formal and informal channels of influence to both maintain his

position within his pyramid and to weaken other pyramids. These

included patron-client ties, the appointment of loyal, but not

necessarily skilled or capable individuals to fill important

position, the dismissal of anyone who showed the slightest signs

of disloyalty (e.g. Eduard Selami), and the passage of laws that

strengthen the position of the Democratic Party (e.g. the press

law, the Genocide law). The constitutional framework of Albania

came about as a result of negotiations between the communists,

who initially wanted a strong, but indirectly elected president,

and the opposition, who wanted a stronger parliament. The

opposition managed to reduce the president’s powers at the time,

52

but some of these powers were restored after Berisha became

president in 1992. Berisha’s futile attempts to consolidate his

powers in a permanent constitution made him realize that his

ability to rule fully depended on the electoral success of his

party and his ability to win parliamentary support for his

initiatives. He therefore used devious means to ensure that his

party won the 1996 election, which put him in conflict with the

West. His failure to pay enough attention to the spread of

illegal and semilegal criminal enterprises throughout the country

ultimately led to the demise of his regime but did not end his

political career. As I will show, Moldovan President Voronin

used similar methods to rule his country, although unlike Berisha

he also had the advantage of being the official chairman of his

party.

Moldova: Communist Party Rule in a Multiparty Environment

Unlike Albania, Moldova initially adopted a semipresidential

constitution that limited the power of the president to influence

the government and the legislative branch.73 The presidency was

73 See “Constitution of the Republic of Moldova: Adopted July 29, 1994,” Centrul pentru Jurnalism Independent, accessed May 5, 2015,

53

initially created in 1990, when Moldova was still a part of the

Soviet Union. Supreme Council chairman Mircea Snegur, a former

communist official, was elected as the country’s first president

by the legislative body, which was dominated by the Moldovan

Popular Front (FPM)74, an anti-Soviet nationalist movement that

supported union with Romania, and reformist communists. As the

unionist and anti-Russian positions of the FPM had provoked a

negative reaction from the sizable Russian, Ukrainian, and Gagauz

ethnic minorities, FPM began to experience defections, allowing

President Snegur, who also came to oppose unionism, to oust the

pro-union government of Mircea Druc and institute direct

presidential elections. He easily won the first direct

presidential election in December 1991 as the FPM boycotted it.

Although he was backed by the newly created Democratic Agrarian

Party (PAD)75, a centrist party led by former collective farm

bosses, which came to dominate the Supreme Council, the party

http://ijc.md/Publicatii/mlu/legislatie/Constitution_of_RM.pdf; Roper (2008), 115-119; Roper (2010), 478

74 The acronym stems from the name of the movement in Romanian—Frontul

75 The acronym stems from the name of the party in Romanian—Partidul Democrat Agrar.

54

itself was riven by factionalism, largely based on personal,

rather than ideological disagreements. Some PAD members were

loyal to the president, while others supported Prime Minister

Andrei Sangheli. A third faction backed Petru Lucinschi, the

former first secretary of the communist party who became chairman

of the Supreme Council in 1993.76

The 1994 parliamentary election allowed PAD to gain a

majority of seats and to start drafting a new constitution.77

Since none of the factions wanted to see their rivals

strengthened by the new constitution, the Constitutional

Commission eventually recommended having a semi-presidential

system of government, effectively cementing the status quo.

Although the president, prime minister, and parliament succeeded

in stabilizing the country’s currency and resolving the conflict

with Gagauzia, increasing factionalism prevented them from

pursuing much-needed economic reforms to solve the problem of

unemployment and continue the privatization process. Thus, the

76 Ionescu, 37-48; King; 151-160, Roper (2010): 477-480.

77 Natal’a Viktorovna Nečaeva-Urijčuk, “Osobennosti formirovania moldavskoj gosudarstvennosti posle obrazovania nezavisimosti,” Rusin, no. 4 (2010): 137.

55

president’s reform initiatives were stymied by the fractured

nature of his party. By the time of the 1996 presidential

election, in which the three faction leaders faced each other

off, PAD had effectively collapsed, as Snegur formed his own

party (known as the Party for the Rebirth and Conciliation of

Moldova, or PRCM78) and Lucinschi ran as an independent. Although

Snegur won in the first round of the election, the more leftist

Lucinschi beat him in the runoff and became the new president.

Snegur’s replacement with Lucinschi, however, did little to end

the stalemate between the president, the government, and

parliament. The ruling political center of the country had become

fractured into sundry political parties and groupings. It was in

this political environment that the Party of Communists of the

Republic of Moldova (PCRM)79 emerged as the strongest and most

consolidated political force of the country.80

78 The acronym is derived from the name of the party in Romanian—Partidul Renașterii și Concilierii din Moldova.

79 The acronym stems from the name of the party in Romanian—Partidul Comuniștilor din Republica Moldova.

80 King, 160-167.

56

Founded in 1993, the PCRM quickly came to be led by Vladimir

Voronin, a former official in Soviet Moldova. Voronin, an ethnic

Moldovan born in present-day Transnistria, steadily rose through

the ranks of the Moldovan Communist Party, starting out as a

bakery manager in the early 1960s and becoming the Soviet

republic’s interior minister in 1988.

Voronin succeeded in consolidating his position within the

PCRM relatively quickly and appealed to both ethnic Russians

dissatisfied with the loss of the economic, linguistic, and

cultural privileges they had enjoyed under communism and ethnic

Moldovans unhappy with the government’s inability to deal with

the country’s pressing economic problems. Although initially the

dominant left-wing forces in Moldovan politics were the Socialist

Party and the Republican Unity Movement for Equality in Rights

(MUE)81, the electorate of these two political forces was largely

limited to ethnic Russians. Nevertheless, with the backing of the

PCRM, their joint list succeeded in obtaining 22 percent of the

81 The abbreviation comes from the name of the movement in Romanian--Mişcarea republicană pentru egalitate în drepturi "Unitate-Edinstvo." Note that the word “Unity” is written in both Romanian (Unitate) and Russian (Edinstvo).

57

vote in the 1994 election, winning the second-largest number of

seats in parliament. The growing dissatisfaction with the

centrists’ inability to bridge their differences in order to

tackle economic issues, led to the growing popularity of PCRM and

Voronin even among ethnic Moldovans. Thus, in the parliamentary

election of 1998, the party won a plurality of seats of

parliament (40 out of 101). However, the three centrist and

center-right parties and movements that won the remainder of the

seats joined forces to create the Alliance for Democracy and

Reforms (ADR)82, thus preventing PCRM from forming a government.83

Although ADR initially backed President Lucinschi, relations

between the president and the parliamentary majority soon began

to unravel. Internal squabbling within ADR forced the president

to make deals with individual MPs in order to win approval for

the reforms that he wanted. Lucinschi also effectively lost

control of the weak coalition cabinet. In 1999, Lucinschi

82 The acronym is derived from the alliance's name in Romanian--Alianța pentru Democrație și Reforme.

83 Valeriu Mosneaga, “Parties and Party System in Moldova, 1990-2002,” in Political Parties in Post-Soviet Space: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Baltics, edited by Anatoly Kulik and Susanna Pshizova(Westport: Praeger, 2005), 75-94; Nečaeva-Urijčuk, 138.

58

introduced a draft law that expanded the powers of the president,

allowing him appoint and remove ministers. The ADR responded by

stonewalling presidential initiatives and criticizing the draft

legislation. Lucinschi was increasingly forced to rely on support

from the Communists and at one point nominated Vladimir Voronin

as prime minister. Nevertheless, the Communists were not

enthusiastic about Lucinschi’s proposal to strengthen the

presidency. In response to the presidential initiative,

Parliamentary Speaker Dumitru Diacov (a former ally of Lucinschi)

began to support constitutional amendments that would curtail

presidential powers and allow parliament to elect the president.

In July 2000, the Communists lent their support to Diacov, thus

transforming Moldova into a parliamentary republic.84 With

84 The amendments adopted by parliament barred the president from presiding over cabinet meetings, appointing judges to the Constitutional Court, and initiating constitutional changes. Nevertheless, the president retained some of his prerogatives, such as the power to nominate the prime minister, initiate legislation and referenda, issue decrees, declare war, halt government acts on constitutional grounds, and appoint a number of important officials. See Hale, 375; “Izmenenia v Konstitucii: Plusy i minusy,” Nezavisimaa Moldova, July 12, 2000, 1; L. Olejnik,“Političeskie transformacii v Respublike Moldova i osobennosti moldavskogo institucionnogo dizajna,” Vestnik Rossijskogo universiteta druždy narodov. Seria politologia, no. 7 (2006); Way, 252-254.

59

Lucinschi’s term set to expire in January 2001, the parliamentary

parties sought to nominate their candidates to succeed him. Since

the law required 15 MP signatures to nominate a candidate the

centrists had a hard time finding a suitable candidate to appeal

to every faction. The centrist factions eventually settled on

Pavel Barbalat, the chairman of the Constitutional Court. By

contrast, the Communists easily nominated Voronin. However, since

the law stipulated that a presidential candidate needed to obtain

the support of 61 (out of 101) MPs to win the election, he was

unable to win in the first two rounds of the presidential

election in December 2000. In accordance with the law, President

Lucinschi then dissolved the parliament and prolonged his own

term.

The population’s dissatisfaction with the continued

quarreling between centrist MPs played into the hands of the

Communists, who won more than 50 percent of the vote in the snap

parliamentary election of February 2001, thus allowing them to

secure 71 out of 101 seats. That number of seats was more than

60

enough to elect Voronin president in April.85 Voronin promptly

took office, but also retained the post of Communist Party

chairman (unlike Berisha, who was constitutionally forced to

resign as Democratic Party chairman upon assuming the office of

the president). Thus, Voronin was both the head of state and the

leader of a party with a parliamentary supermajority. It was the

latter quality that would serve as a primary source of his power

throughout his eight-year term as president.

Unlike the unstable centrist alliances and umbrella parties

of the 1990s, the Communist Party represented a cohesive force

with a relatively strict hierarchy and party discipline. Thus,

Voronin had no trouble in winning support for his nominations and

legislative initiatives. He easily appointed loyal and relatively

unknown Communist Party officials to the most important positions

in the country. Vasile Tarlev, a 37-year old former enterprise

director who had been included on the Communist Party’s 2001

electoral list (as an independent), became prime minister, while

85 Tat’ana Stanislavovna Maslovskaa, “Konstitucionno-pravovye osnovy vyborov prezidenta v stranah SNG.” In Problemy razvitia uridičeskoj nauki i soveršenstvovania pravo-primenitel’noj praktiki, edited by S. A. Balašenko. Minsk: BGU, 2005.

61

Eugenia Ostapciuc, a relatively unknown PCRM Central Committee

member, became the speaker of parliament.86

From the point of view of patronal politics, a system in

which competing and unstable patronal pyramids dominated the

political scene was replaced by a system in which one stable

patronal pyramid dominated both the executive and the legislative

branches of power. Thus, Moldova’s adoption of a parliamentary

form of government paradoxically coincided with the de-facto

strengthening of the authority of the president (as he happened

to be the leader of the dominant pyramid).

The President succeeded in circumventing the limitation on

appointing Constitutional Court judges by having the parliament

do his bidding and easily replaced foreign minister Nicolae

Cernomaz, a leftover from the previous government, with Nicolae

Dudău, who was more supportive of Voronin’s pro-Russian foreign

policy reorientation. At the same time, it was clear that almost

all foreign policy decisions were taken by the president. In

November 2001, Voronin visited Moscow to meet with Russian

President Vladimir Putin in order to sign the treaty on

86 Hale 378; Nečaeva-Urijčuk, 138-139; Neukirch, 1-28.

62

friendship and cooperation, which laid the groundwork for

increased cooperation in economic relations, cultural and

scientific exchange, and other spheres.87 Moldova also obtained

observer status in the Eurasian Economic Community in 2002 and

Voronin suggested that Russia could be granted a similar status

in GUUAM, which had been set up to counter Russia’s influence in

the CIS region.88 Voronin’s preference for Russia was driven by

both ideological and economic considerations, as Moldova depended

on Moscow for gas imports. At the same time, Voronin did not

abandon the idea of Euro-Atlantic integration as eventual EU

membership was supported by a sizable portion of the population.

87 Dogovor o družbe i sotrudničestve meždu Rossijskoj Federaciej i Respublikoj Moldova, Kremlin.ru, accessed May 5, 2015, http://kremlin.ru/supplement/3400; Quinlan, 494.

88 In addition to Moldova, GUUAM also included Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan, hence the name of the organization. In 2005, Uzbekistan withdrew from the organization,thus shortening its name to GUAM. Valerij Gorovoj and Natal’a Omel’ančik, “GUUAM: Problemy i perspektivy ,” CA & CC Press, accessed May 5, 2015, http://www.ca-c.org/journal/2001/journal_rus/cac-03/08.gorru.shtml;Vladimir Ivanov, “GUAM: Starye problemy i novyevyzovy,” Central’naa Azia i Kavkaz, no. 4-5 (2009): 170-179; Svetlana Pynzar’, “Moldova — GUAM,” Central’naa Azia i Kavkaz 57-58, no. 3-4 (2008): 144-153

63

Nevertheless, Voronin’s powers were still limited by the

opposition. His attempt to make Russian the second official

language and a compulsory subject at school was met with fierce

resistance from the Christian Democratic People’s Party (PPCD)89,

one of the two opposition parties in parliament. Between January

and April 2002, PPCD organized rallies that attracted thousands

of Chișinău residents. At the same time, the Communist government

counterattacked the opposition by declaring the demonstrations

illegal and a threat to public safety (as they ostensibly “lured

children” to demonstrate and miss school) and suspended PPCD. The

Communist-dominated parliament lifted the parliamentary immunity

of Iurie Roșca, who was later fined by the Supreme Court. These

actions, which enjoyed the backing of the president, provoked a

negative reaction from the European Union and the Council of

Europe, forcing the Communists to back down and rescind PPCD’s

suspension in February 2002.

In the meantime, the Communist party’s attempts to establish

control over TeleRadio-Moldova, the country’s state-run

89 The acronym is derived from the party's name in Romanian—Partidul Popular Creştin Democrat.

64

television and radio broadcaster, backfired as hundreds of

journalists threatened to go on strike to protest the attempted

use of state-run media as a means of propaganda. These strike

committee filed a complaint at the Council of Europe and the

European Court of Human Rights.

Although Voronin agreed to abandon his plans to make Russian

the second language and change school curricula in response to a

PACE resolution that also called for an end to PPCD-led

demonstrations, he continued to infringe on media freedom. In

2003, the government-controlled Audiovisual Coordinating Council

halted the broadcasting of a number of television and radio

stations that were critical of the government. The parliament

also approved the so-called Concept of the State’s Nationalities

Policies that allowed the government to prosecute anyone denying

the existence of a Moldovan nationality and language and amended

the criminal and civil codes to include harsher penalties

(including jail time) for libel and defamation.90 The Communists

90 These changes caused Freedom House to downgrade Moldova from the “partly free” to the “unfree” category in its 2004 Freedom of the Press Report. See Freedom House, “Moldova,” Freedom of the Press 2004, Freedom House, accessed May 5, 2015, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2004/moldova#.VUl9b

65

also succeeded in taking control of M1, the only nationwide TV

channel. Thus, opposition parties and blocs experienced

considerable difficulties campaigning during the local elections

that took place in May 2003. In 2004, the Communist government

dismissed all staff members of TeleRadio-Moldova. The new

appointees supposedly faced a political “litmus test” prior to

being hired to ensure that they would support Voronin and the

Communist government.

Voronin’s initial hopes that his foreign policy

reorientation would allow Moldova to renegotiate its gas debt

with Russia and that Moscow would put pressure on Transnistria to

end its conflict with Moldova on Chișinău’s terms were frustrated

by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Voronin then introduced new

customs seals in an attempt to put economic pressure on Tiraspol

by forcing it to cut down on its lucrative contraband trade. In

July 2002, the OSCE introduced a plan to end the stalemate

between Chișinău and Tiraspol by creating a federation with two

houses of parliament. In February 2003, Voronin came out with the

idea of replacing Moldova’s unitary constitution with a federal

JNahL8.

66

one, in line with the OSCE recommendations. However, negotiations

with Tiraspol continued to stall. In November 2003, Dmitry Kozak,

the deputy head of Putin’s presidential administration, proposed

his own solution that would have transformed Moldova into a

politically neutral asymmetric federation with a demobilized army

and would have also allowed Russia to keep its army in

Transnistria for twenty years.91 Voronin initially indicated that

he would sign the Kozak memorandum but balked at the last minute,

thus infuriating Russia. Although Voronin came under under

considerable Western pressure not to sign the document,

opposition protests against the measure probably led him to

believe that signing the memorandum would alienate many pro-EU

Moldovans and would therefore endanger his political survival.

Voronin’s rejection of the Kozak Memorandum cannot be seen

as a complete volte-face, as the Moldovan president continued to

emphasize the special relationship that existed between Moldova

and Russia, owing to Moldova’s economic dependence on Russia. 92

Nevertheless, he was able to present himself as a politician

91 Memorandum ob osnovnyh principah gosudarstvennogo ustrojstva ob’’edinënnogo gosudarstva (2003), Regnum.ru, May 22, 2005, accessed May5, 2015, http://www.regnum.ru/news/458547.html.

67

favoring European integration, especially after the EU/Moldova

Action Plan.93

In the run-up to the 2005 parliamentary election, Voronin

continued to enjoy popular support, in no small part because of

the country’s economic growth.94 At the same time, the Communist

Party was not as popular as it was in 2001, partly because of its

failure to fight corruption and crime. Although the Communists

won a majority of seats in parliament, they did not have enough

to re-elect Voronin to a second term. Voronin was forced to seek

the support of the opposition and succeeded in winning the

92 Moldova depended on gas imports and Russia served as an important market for Moldovan wine and tobacco. At the same time,a considerable number of Moldovans were employed in Russia as guest workers and their remittances contributed to the GDP of theMoldova.

93 Andrej Devatkov, “Memorandum Kozaka v istorii prednestrovskogo uregulirovania,” Izvestia Altajskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, no. 4 (2010): 52-56; Devyatkov (2012): 190-192; William Hill, Russia, the Near Abroad, and the West: Lessons from the Moldova-Transnistria Conflict (Washington,DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2012), 63-159; Quinlan: 495-498; Igor Sergeevič Putincen, “Prednestrovskij kompromiss?” Vestnik MGIMO Universiteta, no. 1 (2010): 1-6.

94 The growth may be largely attributed to Russia’s growing GDP, which allowed Moldovan guest workers to send home larger remittances.

68

support of the Democratic Party, the Social Liberal Party, and

even Roșca’s PPCD. In exchange, however, Voronin promised to give

the opposition parties representation in important agencies and

commissions, to increase calls for Russian troop withdrawal from

Transnistria, and to reduce his own influence in the composition

of courts. With support from the opposition, Voronin won a second

term, but his power was significantly more constrained than it

had been during his first term. He reappointed the technocratic

Vasile Tarlev as prime minister and replaced parliamentary

speaker Ostapciuc with economics minister Marian Lupu, another

low-level member of the PCRM.95

Although Voronin made concessions to the opposition, most

notably by conducting the reform of election commissions (which

granted greater representation to non-Communists), he continued

to hold supreme authority over both the executive and legislative

branches, in large part because none of the three opposition

parties had succeeded in forcing Voronin to appoint one of their

representatives as prime minister or parliamentary speaker. Thus,

the opposition leaders largely relied on the president’s word

95 Kennedy, 62-78.

69

that he would carry out the promised reforms. Voronin remained at

the top of his patronal pyramid, which in turn remained the

country’s strongest political force, albeit not as strong as it

had been in 2001.

Thus, Voronin continued his attempts to muzzle the

opposition. Serafim Urechean, the leader of the Our Moldova

Alliance, the only parliamentary party that opposed Voronin’s re-

election bid, was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and

faced outlandish charges of being part of a putative Russian plot

to organize a revolution against Voronin and murder Roșca. Eduard

Musuc, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, and Vlad Filat,

the leader of the newly formed Liberal Democratic Party, also

faced charges. In the run-up to the 2007 local elections, the

government shut down Euro TV and the Antenna C radio station,

both of which were critical of the Communists.96 Nevertheless,

the Communists were not as successful as they had been in 2003,

while the relatively minor Liberal Party managed to make

significant gains, most notably in the Chișinău mayoral race.

96 Timur Tkačuk, “Media-imperia Voronina,” Moldavskie vedomosti, February 2, 2008.

70

In his second term, Voronin initially continued to pursue

closer cooperation with the West by allowing the EU to create its

customs regime along Moldova’s border. Russia then retaliated by

imposing a ban on Moldovan wine imports and raising gas prices.

These punitive measures forced Voronin to temper his pro-EU

policies.97

As uncertainty over Voronin’s plans for the future rose (the

president was barred from running for a third term), the

Communists began to experience defections. Anatol Stati, the

chairman of ASCOM, the country’s largest oil and gas company, and

one of Moldova’s richest businessmen who had been a supporter of

the Communists, began to voice his support for the Liberal Party.

Vasile Tarlev, whom Voronin viewed as a loyal follower,

unexpectedly announced his resignation and tried to form his own

97 Viktor Borisovič Kirillov and Igor’ Sergeevič Putincev, “Otnošenie Moldavii i ES v 1998-2012 gg.” Vestnik MGIMO Universiteta 27, no. 6 (2012): 26-33; I. S. Rassohin, “Evolucia vnešnej politiki Respubliki Moldova ot SNG do GUAM,” Vestnik VGU. Seria Istoria. Politologia. Sociologia, no. 3 (2014): 105-108; Schmidtke and Chira-Pascanut, 133-156; Natalia Shapovalova and Jos Boonstra. “The European Union: From Ignorance to a Privileged Partnership with Moldova.” In Moldova: Arena of International Influences, edited by Marcin Kosienkowski and William Schreiber (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2012), 51-85.

71

party, only to be denied registration. He then became the leader

of Centrist Union of Moldova (UCM)98, a relatively little-known

social-democratic party. Voronin then appointed Zinaida

Greceanîi, Tarlev’s first deputy, as the country’s new prime

minister. Tarlev’s defection had definitely provoked the ire of

the Communists who succeeded in ousting him as the chairman of

the National Association of Producers.99

Although the Communists launched an aggressive media

campaign during the 2009 parliamentary election, opposition

parties untainted by cooperation with Voronin (Urechean’s Our

Moldova Alliance, Mihai Ghimpu’s Liberal Party, and Filat’s

Liberal Democratic Party) also maintained a vigorous campaign

despite their limited access to media resources. These parties

realized that Voronin’s successor would need their support to win

the presidential election, in exchange for which they were

prepared to demand more serious concessions than the ones that

98 The acronym stems from the union's name in Romanian--Uniunea Centristă din Moldova.

99 “Kabinet razpusen. Da zdravstvuet novyj kabinet!” Nezavisimaa Moldova, no. 47 (428), April 1, 2008;“Vasilij Tarlev pereizbran predsedatelem CSM,” Moldavskie Vedomosti, January 15, 2009.

72

the Communists had granted to the Social Liberals, the Democrats,

and PPCD in 2005.

The April 2009 parliamentary election set off a series of

protests that contributed to the eventual downfall of Voronin’s

patronal pyramid. As the Central Electoral Commission reached the

end of the ballot counting process, the Communists were projected

to win 61 seats—the exact number necessary to elect a president.

As this contradicted the results of a USAID-funded exit poll

(that suggested that the Communists would only win 55 seats),

groups of young people frustrated with what they perceived as

electoral fraud organized protests with the help of social media.

These protests quickly turned violent as demonstrators stormed

the office of the president and the parliament. Nevertheless, the

“Twitter revolution” did not oust President Voronin.100 At the

same time, the Central Election Commission announced that after

counting all of the votes, the Communists won 60 seats, one seat

short of the number of parliamentary mandates necessary to elect

a president. Voronin then began to implement his succession plan

100 Vladimir Thorik, “V Kišineve proizošli massovye besporadki,” Moldavskie vedomosti, April 8, 2009; “Za čto golosovalaMoldova,” Nezavisimaa Moldova, no. 49 (621), April 7, 2009.

73

by becoming the speaker of the new parliament (whilst also

retaining the presidency) and nominating Prime Minister Greceanîi

for president. However, the Liberals, Liberal Democrats, and

members of the Our Moldova Alliance boycotted the two rounds of

the election, with Greceanîi being unable to garner the necessary

number of votes to become president. Voronin then dissolved the

new parliament for its inability to elect a new president.101

In the run-up to the second parliamentary election of 2009,

the Communists resorted to increasingly desperate tactics.

Voronin’s chief campaign advisor, Mark Tkaciuk, accused the

opposition of fascism and pan-Romanianism, while the police

arrested prominent opposition members, including Chișinău Mayor

Dorin Chirtoacă.102 These heavy-handed tactics apparently only

boosted the ratings of the opposition, which found a common

101 Ulia Semënova (Udovič), “Cena odnogo rešenia,” Nezavisimaa Moldova, no. 80 (652), June 4, 2009; Timur Tkačuk, “Voroninu ne udalos’ najti ‘zolotoj golos’ dla Grečanoj,” Moldavskie vedomosti, June 5, 2009.

102 “RPIAC: Mark Tkačuk soznatel’no provalil kommunistov,” Moldavskie vedomosti, July 30, 2009; Ignat Valikov, “Ese neskol’ko slov o predvybornyh tehnologiah PKRM,” Moldavskie vedomosti, July 27, 2009; Viktor Žosu, “Moldova: na puti k policejskomu gosudarstvu?” Moldavskie vedomosti, July 27, 2009.

74

ground in resistance to Voronin. In the meantime, the Communist

Party continued to experience defections, most notably that of

former speaker Marian Lupu, who became the new leader of the

Democratic Party.103 Thus, in the July 2009 parliamentary

election, the Communists only won 48 seats, which was not even

enough to form a government.104 The four opposition parties that

also won seats in parliament (the Liberal Democrats, the

Liberals, the Democrats, and the Our Moldova Alliance) formed the

Alliance for European Integration (AIE). As leader of the largest

party in the alliance, Vlad Filat decided to become prime

minister, while Mihai Ghimpu, the leader of the second-largest

party, became parliamentary speaker.105 Voronin stepped down as

president in September 2009, thus leaving the top post of the

103 Vasilij Molčanov, “5 mifov o Mariane Lupu,” Moldavskie vedomosti, July 7, 2009.

104 Vadim Mitin, “Oppozicia polučaet bol’šinstvo mest v novom parlamente,” Moldavskie vedomosti, August 4, 2009.

105 Petru Karaman, “Pravitel’stvo AEI: vsem sestram po ser’gam,” Moldavskie vedomosti, September 23, 2009; “S dumoj o kommunističeskom suke,” Moldavkie vedomosti, September 21, 2009; Mihail Sokolov, “U Moldovy novoe pravitel’stvo,” Moldavskie vedomosti, September 29, 2009;

75

country vacant.106 As the new parliament could not elect a

president without the support of the Communists, the government

effectively became the locus of executive authority, while the

speaker of parliament performed the president's constitutionally

prescribed duties. The eventual election of Nicolae Timofti, the

chairman of the Supreme Council of Magistrates, as president did

not change this new distribution of power. Thus, Moldova became a

genuine parliamentary republic after Voronin's resignation.

The case of Moldova shows how President Vladimir Voronin was

able to gain unprecedented powers in a parliamentary country.

While his directly elected and constitutionally more powerful

predecessors struggled to win parliamentary support for their

initiatives, Voronin, being the leader of the party with a

majority of seats, did not experience any problems in adopting

the legislation that he wanted. He was also able to control the

106 “Osen’ prezidenta,” Moldavskie vedomosti, September 7, 2009; Vladimir Voronin, “Vladimir Voronin, ili Odinočestvo prezidenta,”translated from Moldovan into Russian, Nezavisimaa Moldova, no. 133(705), September 16, 2009; “Voronin gonit. PKRM na dossročnye vybory,” Moldavskie vedomosti. September 14, 2009.According to the Constitution, the speaker of parliament became the acting president in the absence of a president. Thus, Ghimpu became the country’s nominal head of state.

76

government and was entirely responsible for his country’s protean

foreign policy. In an effort to strengthen his patronal pyramid’s

hold over the entire political system of Moldova, he devoted

considerable efforts to restricting media freedoms and opposition

activities. Nevertheless, he was unable to prevent a growing tide

of dissatisfaction with his inability to deliver on his promise

to fight corruption and crime and set the country on a path to

European integration.

Conclusion

The cases of Albania and Moldova demonstrate that strong

presidents can emerge even in parliamentary countries. Both of

these countries had indirectly elected presidents that

concentrated decision making authority and exhibited

authoritarian tendencies. They did so by relying on their

respective patronal pyramids. Berisha first had to consolidate

his position within the pyramid by removing challengers such as

Gramoz Pashko or Arben Imami, while Voronin came to power as the

undisputed leader of the Communist Party. Since Berisha had to

rely on proxies to chair the Democratic Party, he tried to cement

77

his position by adopting a permanent constitution but failed to

win popular support for the initiative. Voronin did not face such

a problem as the Moldovan constitution allowed him to remain the

leader of his party.

Both Berisha and Voronin came to power when their respective

countries had just become parliamentary republics. In the case of

Albania, the constitutional provisions that made it parliamentary

were a product of a compromise between the communists (who

initially wanted a stronger, but indirectly elected president)

and the opposition. In Moldova, the amendments that turned it

into a parliamentary republic came about as a result of conflict

between President Lucinschi and the parliament, in which the

latter won. Both Albania and Moldova became proper parliamentary

republics once Berisha and Voronin were forced out of office.

Thus, the unusual concentration of authority in the hands of the

president in both cases may have been a result of the fact that

the two parliamentary systems were new and untested. With time,

both republics became real parliamentary republics with executive

authority concentrated in the hands of the prime minister. In the

Albanian case, the new rules of the games were acknowledged by

78

Berisha, who became prime minister after making a political

comeback in 2005.

The research study has also demonstrated the “perils of

parliamentarism.” When one party wins a parliamentary majority or

supermajority under a parliamentary constitution, its leader has

the potential to control all branches of power. Since the

parliament has no counterweight under a parliamentary system, a

supermajority can easily staff the government, the courts, and

other important agencies (e.g. the media, the central bank, the

central electoral commission) with its supporters. In patronal

systems that are common in Eastern Europe, these supporters are

highly likely to maintain unswerving loyalty to their leaders,

although defections are also possible. Whether the leader of the

patronal pyramid is the president (as in the case of Albania and

Moldova), the prime minister (as in the case of Hungary today),

or the party leader (the case of Montenegro since 1998), he/she

will be able to exert considerable control over all branches of

power thanks to his position at the top of his/her patronal

pyramid.

79

One question that this research study has not answered is

why Berisha and Voronin chose to be presidents in the first

place. I have not been able to find an adequate answer in either

primary sources or scholarly literature. It would seem more

logical to become prime minister whilst electing a party loyalist

as president. One possible explanation for the puzzling decisions

made by these two post-communist leaders is that they viewed the

president as a position of greater immunity from the possible

peripeteias of parliamentary life, as a greater number of votes

is required to both elect and oust the president. Moreover, the

position of president provided them with an apparent distance

from day-to-day politics (despite their constant interference in

it). This apparent distance served as a buffer from some of the

most unpopular policies of the government but ultimately did not

save them from losing power.

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