DODON HAS VERY FEW CHANCES FOR RETAINING POWER – TRANSNISTRIAN EXPERT

President Igor Dodon has very few chances to retain power even despite the support of a considerable part of the Moldova population, believes Transnistria’s former deputy minister of foreign affairs Igor Shornikov, current director of the Transnistrian institute of socio-political researches and regional development.

He expressed this opinion of his at the 11th International Conference called “Peculiarities of Modern Integration Processes in the FSU Area”, organized in Yalta city (in the Crimea) by the International Life magazine with the support of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“Igor Dodon could actually retain the presidential post, had he won in the first round of the election [November 1] and had Donald Trump won a victory in the United States two days later. In such case, Washington would be too busy to think of Moldova. But it is precisely for the sake of ruining Dodon’s victory in the first round that there emerged so many petty spoiler candidates. The greatest danger for Dodon is Renato Usatii, who was deprived of the possibility to take part in the 2016 presidential election but called his electorate to vote for Dodon. It is believed that exactly support by Usatii’s voters ensured for Dodon the advantage over Maia Sandu in 2016. Presently, Renato Usatii is building his election campaign on harsh criticizing of Igor Dodon”, said the Tiraspol expert.

In his words, Dodon’s main rival Maia Sandu is preparing to Dodon’s victory in a second round, is intending to announce for the whole world that Dodon has rigged the elections, and to bring population masses into streets so as to grasp power by using notorious color-revolution methods.

“Sandu has already enlisted the support of Romania and Western embassies in Chisinau. Dodon is not Lukashenko. Dodon cannot fully count on the power agencies’ backing, and he has no substantial control over the mass media. On the other hand, Moldova is not Belarus, either, and in Chisinau it is hardly possible to mobilize large masses of people for a many-day-long protesting”, presumes Igor Shornikov.