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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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• Moldova 2003
  
• Moldova 2005
  

The former communists won the parliament election in Moldova, a country being a parliament republic with a president elected by the parliament. They represent a party that has gruesome record of crimes against humanity during the long period of the Soviet occupation between 1940 and 1991. Among many other things one of the legacies of communism was the territorial exchange between the former Soviet republics Moldova and Ukraine, due to which any of these republics took land with a population from the other ethnicity. This is the reason why approximately 12 pct of the Moldavian territory has broke away in 1992 establishing its own self-proclaimed republic backed by strong Russian military presence that hasn't been withdrawn ever since. Solving this territorial problem has become the main goal of the Moldavian foreign policy ever since the independence from the Soviet Union. In order to have the support of Moscow the Moldavians elected the communists in 2001. Till 2003 the negotiations went well but at the very last moment the communist leader and president Voronin rejected the final text of agreement and the relations between Moldova and Russia began to sour.

The last almost 2 years have been a "war of words" period between the two countries. Moldova is very much dependent economically on Russia, responsible for about 40 pct of the Moldavian exports, big part of which is wine that can hardly find other foreign markets to replace the Russian consumers. Russia according to its good old habits has begun propaganda war against Voronin in order to compel him to change the course and why not to convince his entourage to change the leader. This campaign wasn't successful but Voronin took the Russian demarches very personal and serious and denied the Russian observers access to the 2005 election. He garnishes his electoral rhetoric with moderate anti-Russian and less moderate pro-Western slogans making him appear as a pro-Western politician, ready to move westward to join NATO and EU, if invited of course. The impression created by the Russian media was that the Kremlin has lost another possible ally. The headlines in the western media were triumphant as expected. In the zero-sum-game the loss to one side was automatically perceived as a victory to the other side.

The reality is more complex than this simple "you-lose-I-win" model. For Russia this really is another political blow on the post-Soviet space that can hardly be hidden. Those who buy conspiracy theories may argue that in fact all this "war of words" was orchestrated by Moscow in order to give another election victory to the communists that have stronger ties with their Russian counterparts. If this is the case we should expect warming of the bilateral relations in the months to come and Russian-backed agreement on Moldova eastern region. I personally don't buy this conspiracy theory, which doesn't mean that I don't expect some warming given the high level of economic dependency of Moldova. Even if the loss of Moldova isn't real it creates impression in Russia that the Kremlin is so weak so even the weakest former Soviet republic can challenge its authority without been punished. The only thing the Russian president doesn't want to make impression of is that he's a weak leader. Russian can pardon a leader that is brute and blood-thirsty if they are convinced that he acts for the sake of Russia, which explains the high public standing of cruel leaders such as Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Lenin and Stalin. What the Russians can't pardon is a leader that appears so weak so the situation goes out of control, e.g. Nicolas II and Gorbachev. Moldova of 2005 may not be a western victory, but for sure it's perceived in Moscow as a defeat. Putin has to do something and to do it fast if he doesn't want to become soon part of the history books.

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