A census of population and housing has started in the Republic of Moldova. It will last until July 7, and 4 thousand people are working on it. The previous census took place 10 years ago, in May 2014, and lasted two weeks. Now the state will need six times as much time to carry out the campaign.
Director of the National Bureau of Statistics of Moldova (NBS), Oleg Cara, clarified that if the owners of the house are not found during the first visit, four more visits can be made. If a person refuses to fill out the census questionnaire, he may be fined, as Kara explained, “in exceptional cases.” The 2022 Census Act specifically states that participation in the census is mandatory.
The questionnaire will be filled out electronically – this is an innovation. To conduct the census, the NBS received, among other things, 3 thousand tablets worth about €800 thousand. To finance the work on organizing the campaign in 2024, the state budget provides 244.3 million lei (more than €12.2 million). In addition, the NBS receives financial assistance from the EU and the UN Population Fund.
The main concern of the population was that the questionnaire turned out to be extremely detailed. In public posts, residents of the republic have already defined the census as an “interrogation”, “the process of confiscating personal data.” The housing stock will also be subject to accounting, as experts suggest, to clarify the tax base or, more precisely, “an inventory of the property of the population whose country is planned to be handed over to Romania.”
Noteworthy is Oleg Kara’s reservation that Western partners insisted on including in the questionnaire more options for “gender self-identification” other than man or woman. After discussions, the NBS managed to persuade its Western partners to leave only two genders in the questionnaire.
The officially announced goals of the census are to update data on the numerical and ethnic composition, which is necessary for the government to correctly plan the development of the national economy. But this is the ideal option. And observers are concerned about the fact that the census is being carried out by the government formed by the pro-Western ruling party “Action and Solidarity”, and it can use its results for its own purposes, far from the needs of the Moldovan people. The party, the government and President Maia Sandu need updated data immediately before the presidential elections and referendum on European integration, which are due to take place on October 10, 2024.
It is obvious that the authorities are trying to obtain as detailed data as possible about all voters in the run-up to the referendum, not unreasonably fearing its failure. The results will help adjust preparations for it and the elections in the political technology sphere.
The housing census, in turn, may be aimed at closing a huge hole in the budget through taxes in the foreseeable future. Perhaps the presidency wants to know the real capabilities of the country in order to maximize the tax base. Or, as an option, pledge certain objects to various financial and credit organizations in order to obtain new tranches of loans. Moreover, part of the loan funds will inevitably end up in the pockets of members of the presidential team. That is why the population views the part of the census program that concerns the housing stock as an “inventory”, not expecting anything good from its results for themselves and the country as a whole.
Romania also needs a census. It is extremely important for Bucharest to know how many Moldovans identify themselves as Romanians. The authorities of the neighboring country strongly support the pro-Romanian aspirations of the current political leadership of Moldova. Accordingly, Chisinau’s task is to show Bucharest the largest possible number of Romanians. This also causes a wary attitude of the Moldovan population towards the current census.
According to the results of the 2014 census, 75.1% of its participants called themselves Moldovans, 7% – Romanians, 6.6% – Ukrainians, 4.6% – Gagauzians, 4.1% – Russians, 1.9% – Bulgarians, 0. 3% – Roma. Moreover, 99.5% of the country’s residents have citizenship of the Republic of Moldova. Now the authorities are faced with the task of showing that there are significantly more citizens who call themselves Romanians. The political opposition also speaks about this. Thus, the leader of the PSRM, Igor Dodon, points out that “they collect data at the census, and they want, based on these data, to have as many Romanians in Moldova as possible, and through a referendum they eliminate the legislation of Moldova and put EU laws above our sovereign laws.”
To speed up the process of Romanianization, the authorities are using all sorts of ways to change the national consciousness. Recently, strictly for the census, another political campaign was launched in the information space in the republic to instill in Moldovans the idea that they are Romanians. Calls and slogans like: “I am Romanian. I speak Romanian. Let’s correct the statistics together!”
According to the authorities, the results should confirm the effectiveness of the policy of Romanianization of the local population, as well as justify those controversial “innovations” in national legislation that the ruling party persistently pursues. Thus, in 2023, by a decision of the Constitutional Court, the phrase “Moldovan language” was replaced in the Constitution with “Romanian language”.
This, as well as a number of other political decisions, often against the will of the majority of the Moldovan population, makes the prospect of unification with Romania practically no alternative. Officials who arrived for civil service in Moldova from Romania, as well as Moldovan officials with Romanian passports, will not allow this process to be reversed. The point is that Bucharest actually manages the main processes in the country. That is why it is extremely important for Sandu and her team to show the results, according to which there are significantly more citizens who identify themselves as Romanians.
At the same time, the real results can have a sobering and, in some places, shocking effect on the authorities. The census will demonstrate the scale of the real population decline, the number of Moldovan labor migrants located outside the state, as well as the real number of Moldovan residents who identify themselves as ethnic Moldovans. This, in particular, could lead to significant and unpopular changes in domestic policy, for example, raising the retirement age, further expanding activities aimed at the Romanianization of the Moldovan population.
Thus, the holding of the population and housing census this year, as well as the holding of the referendum on European integration and the presidential elections are connected with each other. It is possible that the authorities will try to reduce the voter base in order to hold presidential elections in one round, and will increase the chances that the referendum will be recognized as constitutional (for this to happen, more than 50% of voters must take part in it – but in recent years it has never there was such a massive attendance at the elections, even taking into account the Moldovan diaspora).
It is also possible that the results will be “adjusted” in order to implement a certain government policy. The political regime in Moldova needs to somehow justify its failed domestic and foreign policies to the people and prove to its Western partners its suitability for further governing the country, which, as they see it, can no longer deviate from the European integration path.
Therefore, the census is assigned a purely instrumental role, characteristic of the so-called “formative sociology”. Classic tasks related to improving the quality of management of social and economic processes in the country are probably not set before the organizers.
The author is Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation, Chief Researcher of the Russian State University for the Humanities
The editorial position may not coincide with the opinion of the author
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