Socialist MP Gaik Vartanean has left the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM), PSRM press service representatives announced on Wednesday, December 14. According to the PSRM announcement, Vartanean would have joined the team of Ion Ceban, the current mayor general of the capital, who announced in the summer of 2022 that he would launch his “National Alternative Movement Party”.

The PSRM says it is counting “on the common sense of Gaic Vartanean, who must submit his mandate as a deputy and respect the will of the voters, and this mandate belongs to the PSRM”.

“Gaik Vartanean’s decision is not a surprise for the PSRM team. We have always known that he is the man close to Ion Ceban and that his departure was imminent. We wish him continued success, with the caveat that the PSRM has always condemned political careerism. We are counting on the common sense of Gaik Vartanean, who must submit his mandate as MP and respect the will of voters, and this mandate belongs to PSRM,” a PSRM statement said.

On 13 December, the day before the PSRM announcement, MP Gaik Vartanean took part, together with socialists Olga Cebotari and Maxim Lebedinschi, Mayor Ion Ceban, former Prime Minister Ion Chicu, former communist MPs Marc Tkaciuk and Iurie Muntean, in a new working meeting of the “Common Agenda” platform, launched on 11 October 2022 by several opposition forces in Moldova.

The Constitutional Court validated Gaik Vartanean’s mandate as MP on 21 July 2022. Vartanean came to parliament in place of Communist and Socialist Bloc MP Alla Dolință, who announced in a resignation request that she was resigning from the PSRM because she did not support “the rhetoric of both the leadership and the party as a whole” on the war in Ukraine.

Gaik Vartanean was previously a Socialist MP. He was an assistant to a Socialist MP and later, since 2015, a municipal councillor in Chisinau on the same party’s lists. Previously, he lived and worked for several years in the US.

In July 2020, the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Moldova accused Vartanean and former presidential adviser Ernest Vardanean of being part of a group of the Armenian community that generated a conflict with another group of Azerbaijani protesters and “violated the right of the participants of the peaceful organized protest”. According to a statement issued by the diplomatic mission, “this circumstance was part of a planned provocation by the Armenian community”. There was also a dispute between the socialist candidate and the Azerbaijani ambassador to Moldova, Gudsi Dursun Oglu Osmanov, in which Vartanean demanded moral damages. In May this year, the dispute ended with the issuance of an injunction.

Vartanean confirmed at the Parliament meeting on 15 December that he left the faction of the Party of Socialists of Moldova (PSRM). He says that from today he will work in Parliament as an “independent MP”. Vartanean did not comment on statements by PSRM representatives that he had joined the team of Ion Ceban, the current mayor-general of the capital, who announced in the summer of 2022 that he was launching his “National Alternative Movement Party”.

“Indeed, yesterday there was a meeting of the faction of the Bloc of Communists and Socialists, where I submitted my request to leave the faction. The request was approved. Today I declare that I will work in Parliament as an independent MP and I want to thank my fellow MPs in the bloc for supporting my approach (…),” Vartanean said.