The Agrarian Party of Moldova ( ro, Partidul Agrar din Moldova, PAM), formerly the Democratic Agrarian Party of Moldova (''Partidul Democrat Agrar din Moldova'', PDAM), is a
Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The List of states ...
n
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...
that was prominent from 1991 to 1998. Governing for most of this period, the party represented a large centrist multi-ethnic bloc led by former
collective farm
Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member ...
chairmen and village mayors. These reformed Communists were motivated more by patronage than ideology and committed to maintaining their positions of power in the privatised agricultural and agro-industrial sector. To its right stood the pan-
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
ns of the
Popular Front
A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault".
More generally, it is "a coalition ...
, and to its left, the
Socialists
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the eco ...
and later the
Communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...
.
History
The Agrarian Party traces its origins to a parliamentary club numbering 60 deputies and called ''Viaţa Satului'' ("The Life of the Village"), set up in April 1990.
The party was formally created in November 1991, three months after Moldova's independence from the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
;
Dumitru Moţpan was its first president. At the time, the sitting
Moldovan Parliament
The Parliament of the Republic of Moldova is the supreme representative body of the Republic of Moldova, the only state legislative authority, being a unicameral structure composed of 101 elected MPs on lists, for a period of 4 years. Parliamen ...
was the one elected in 1990, when non-Communist parties were still banned, and deputies freely entered and exited nascent parties in a chaotic environment. In this way, the PDAM, with its clear policy orientation, institutional power base and good organisation, quickly gained the most seats and became the effective governing party, standing at the centre of the national unity government formed in mid-1992 following the end of hostilities in the
War of Transnistria. Composed largely of the former Communist agricultural and agro-industrial elite, the party championed Moldovan sovereignty, opposing attempts to join Romania and Russia. For a time, its most radical members rejected the Front's description of Moldovans' ethnicity and language as ''Romanian'', maintaining the Soviet view of an ethnic distinction between
Romanians
The Romanians ( ro, români, ; dated exonym ''Vlachs'') are a Romance languages, Romance-speaking ethnic group. Sharing a common Culture of Romania, Romanian culture and Cultural heritage, ancestry, and speaking the Romanian language, they l ...
and
Moldovans
Moldovans, sometimes referred to as Moldavians ( ro, moldoveni , Moldovan Cyrillic: молдовень), are a Romance-speaking ethnic group and the largest ethnic group of the Republic of Moldova (75.1% of the population as of 2014) and a sign ...
. By 1994, this ideology, sometimes called
Moldovenism
Moldovenism is a political term used to refer to the support and promotion of the Moldovan identity and Moldovan culture primarily by the opponents of such ideas.
Some of its supporters ascribe this identity to the medieval Principality of Mol ...
, had become a central tenet of the party's platform. It was notably promoted in a speech by the party's most prominent spokesman at the time,
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Mircea Snegur
Mircea Snegur (; born 17 January 1940) is a Moldovan politician who was served as President of Moldova#Republic of Moldova (1991–present), first President of Moldova from 1990–1997. Before that, he served as President of Moldova, Chairman o ...
, marking a shift from his earlier more pro-Romanian stance.
The speech undoubtedly helped propel the Agrarian Democrats to victory in the
February 1994 election, the country's first since independence. The Front's weakening since 1990 had already shown the unpopularity of pan-Romanian notions, and Snegur's rhetoric was against union with Romania and in favour of independence and territorial integrity. At the election, the Front finished in last place of the parties elected and the PDAM's 43.2% of the vote translated into an absolute majority in parliament (56 of 104 seats). Further confirming the popularity of government policy, at
a referendum the following month, 95.4% voted that Moldova should remain an "independent and unitary state", while at the 1995 local elections, the party scored 47% of the vote.
Following the 1994 election, the Agrarians reversed a number of Frontist reforms enacted a few years earlier. Parliament voted to drop "
Deşteaptă-te, române!", used in Romania as well, as the national anthem. The
Constitution of Moldova
The current Constitution was adopted on 29 July 1994 by the Moldovan Parliament. It came into force on 27 August 1994 and has since been amended 8 times.
The Constitution established the Republic of Moldova as a sovereign state, independent an ...
, adopted by Parliament in July 1994, describes that state language as the "Moldovan language" and makes no reference to its relationship with Romanian, as did the 1989 language laws. Language tests mandated for state employees by those laws were suspended, and the State Department of Languages, which had previously conducted "raids" on institutions to ensure employees knew the official language, virtually shut down. These measures ended language as a major political issue and made Moldova ''de facto'' bilingual. The party also supported autonomy for the
Gagauz, which soon manifested itself in the creation of
Gagauzia
Gagauzia or Gagauz-Yeri, or ; ro, Găgăuzia; russian: Гагаузия, Gagauziya officially the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia; ro, Unitatea Teritorială Autonomă Găgăuzia, ''UTAG''; russian: Автономное территор ...
. Furthermore, it backed closer relations with
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
and the former Soviet republics, calling for participation in the
CIS
Cis or cis- may refer to:
Places
* Cis, Trentino, in Italy
* In Poland:
** Cis, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, south-central
** Cis, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, north
Math, science and biology
* cis (mathematics) (cis(''θ'')), a trigonome ...
' economic structures but not its political or military ones (Moldova joined the CIS in 1994), and advocating permanent neutrality and the banning of foreign troops from the country (then as now stationed in
Transnistria
Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), is an unrecognised breakaway state that is internationally recognised as a part of Moldova. Transnistria controls most of the narrow strip of land between the Dniester riv ...
). The PDAM wished for a slow transition to capitalism, continuing market reforms but with generous subsidies and credits for agriculture.
Despite the linguistic compromises reached in 1994, the matter did resurface in March 1995, when mass student demonstrations called for the constitution to recognise the language as "Romanian" and not "Moldovan". Snegur showed his support for these demands in a speech the following month delivered in order to differentiate himself in the
upcoming presidential election. Soon afterwards, Snegur and his rival, parliament chairman
Petru Lucinschi
Petru Lucinschi (; born 27 January 1940) is a former Moldovan politician who was Moldova's second President (1997–2001).
Biography
Early life and education
Petru Lucinschi was born on 27 January 1940 in Rădulenii Vechi village, Soroc ...
, formed their own parties, the former appealing to right and centre-right ethnic Moldovans; the latter to left-wing Moldovans and Slavs. A number of PDAM deputies defected to Snegur's new party, forcing the Agrarians to rely on support from the Slavic-dominated Socialist Unity Bloc. The third major candidate was Prime Minister
Andrei Sangheli
Andrei Sangheli (born 20 July 1944) is a Moldovan politician.
Sangheli was the second Prime Minister of Moldova from 1992 until 1997. He represented the Moldovenist group of the Agrarian Party of Moldova.George Berkin, "Secession blues", in ' ...
, who remained a leader of the Agrarian Democrats. A victorious Lucinschi was able to push through an ambitious privatisation programme in 1997 despite much resistance from the PDAM and their Slavic allies, although at the Agrarians' insistence,
agricultural subsidies
An agricultural subsidy (also called an agricultural incentive) is a government incentive paid to agribusinesses, agricultural organizations and farms to supplement their income, manage the supply of agricultural commodities, and influence the ...
ballooned and privatisation and restructuring in that sector remained slow.
The Agrarian Democrats collapsed at the
March 1998 election, taking 3.6% of the vote and failing to enter parliament. Two main reasons were the cause: economic malaise and the fading of the ethnic issue allowed for a Communist resurgence, and disputes among PDAM sympathizers Snegur, Lucinschi and Sangheli caused internal division. Moreover, with Snegur's party occupying the centre-right, Lucinschi's the centre and the Communists the far left, the moderate leftists of the PDAM were outflanked, having alienated Moldovan peasants by allying with Slavs against the popular Lucinschi and opposing the transformation of collective farms into private ones. Until 2001, three alliances governed together mainly as a way to block the Communists, who won the
election that year. There, the PDAM took 1.2% of the vote, failing to regain ground at the 2003 local elections.
At the party's 8th congress in July 2004, its name was changed to its current form, and despite preparations to do so, it failed to contest the
2005 election. Now led by Anatol Popuşoi, it has some 10,000 members.
[Partidul Agrar din Moldova (PAM)]
Elections 2005 in Moldova At the
April 2009 election, it supported the ruling
Communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...
, with Popuşoi being included on that party's list of candidates.
Election News from February 11, 2009
, e-democracy.md
Notes
References
* Shale Asher, ''From Ethnic Conflict to Stillborn Reform'', 2005, Texas A&M University Press.
* Charles King, ''The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture'', 2000, Hoover Institution Press.
* Alan Siaroff, ''Comparative European Party Systems'', 2000, Taylor & Francis.
{{Moldovan political parties
Political parties in Moldova
Political parties established in 1991
Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The List of states ...
1991 establishments in Moldova