Elections in Moldova. Again.

This piece was published as part of Nicu Popescu’s EUObserver blog.

On 29 July Moldova
will hold early parliamentary elections. Here is a snapshot of Moldova two
days before the new elections

Why early elections?

The previous elections on 5 April led to the victory of the Party of
Moldovan Communist which got 60 places out of 101 in the parliament (and 49% of
the vote), while three opposition parties – the Liberals, Liberal-Democrats and
Our Moldova alliance – got 41 deputies in the parliament. The best site to
check all the data is www.alegeri.md.
The announcement of the election results led to riots in Chisinau, attacks on
the parliament and presidential palace and a subsequent crackdown by the
government against youth, media and opposition parties.

The Communists had enough (52) votes to appoint a new government and the
speaker of parliament, but fell short by just one vote of the necessary 61
votes to also elect the new president (the president is elected by parliament).
Most observers, including me, were absolutely sure that finding just one vote
through corruption or pressure in an opaque, centralised, and unprincipled Moldovan
political system would not be a big problem. However, the opposition was able
to close ranks and NOT deliver that one vote in two consecutive rounds of
presidential elections in May and early June. I confess I still do not fully
understand how this was possible… In any case after a double failure to elect a
new president, under the Moldovan constitution, the parliament was dissolved in
early June and early elections for 29 July were announced.

A polarised society

The 7 April riots in Chisinau and the subsequent crackdown lead to a huge
polarisation of the Moldovan society. Around April and May most Moldovan
observers thought that the riots boosted societal support for the Communist
party which used domination of the media to sell its version of the ‘April
events’ (which could be roughly summarised as follows: “the opposition parties
are a bunch of fascists that tried to organise a coup d’etat with Romanian
involvement”. To be fair the opposition version of events is equally
straightforward: “the government faked the elections. When people went out on
the streets to protests against fraud, government inspired provocateurs
instigated the riots in order to discredit the opposition and justify a
crackdown”.) In early June the Communists boasted they would take 80 MPs in new
elections, and most observers were sure they would obtain at least more votes
than they did in April.

However, by July opinion polls showed that while the society remained
polarised, most clusters of the public maintained their political preferences.
The most reliable opinion
poll made in Moldova
by the Institute for Public Policy (summary) showed the
following:

• 42.6% of the population
  thinks the 5 April elections were free and fair, while 42.4% think they
  were not.
• 45% said the 7 April
  protests were not justified, while 40% thought the protests were partly or
  entirely justified.
• After the April-June
  political crisis 47% of the population think early elections were
  necessary (and 43% – not necessary).

Such numbers are quite striking because they suggest that
the heavy pro-governmental TV propaganda had a rather limited impact. (88%
percent of the public relies on TV as the main source of information. The
Russian Pervyi Kanal and the government controlled Moldova 1 – are the most watched TV
channels. Both are gave an unabashedly pro-governmental interpretation of the
April events.)

Re-creating the political centre

Marian Lupu was number two on the Communist list for the April election, and
he was speaker of parliament (representing the Communists) in 2005-2009 and was
the most likely Communist party candidate for the presidency (in the end the
Communists promoted Zinaida Greceanii), the most popular Communist party member
after Vladimir Voronin and one of the most popular politicians in Moldova. In
June he announced his departure from the Communist party and spoke against the
polarisation of the society, the undemocratic ways of the Communist party and
took over the small and marginalised Democratic Party to use it as a vehicle
for the July elections. He also brought in into the Democratic Party a few
young and respected professionals.

Lupu’s departure is not a fatal blow to the Communists, and very few of the
party rank-and-file followed Lupu. However, he is likely to take away with him
a few percent of the Communist vote and could potentially contribute to a
re-balancing of the political system. He tries to re-create the political centre
and is likely to be the king-maker in the next parliament.

The opposition

Zooming in on Moldova and
judging its opposition by “European” (Polish, Lithuanian, Estonian or Romanian)
standards anyone would conclude that Moldova’s opposition is unimpressive.
It could not control the crowd during April riots; some of its leaders have
been involved in opaque business practices in the 90s, its campaign is often
uninspired and uninspiring, and, worst of all, it is not united (here is a good
selection of political ads by most political parties on YouTube). It is not an
opposition ready to assume power should it win the elections.

But if you zoom-out and judge it by post-Soviet standards the picture is
quite different. There are three main parties: the Liberals, Liberal-Democrats
and Our Moldova. They also cooperate relatively well with each other. The Liberals have a
young and charismatic leader, Dorin Chirtoaca – the 30-years old mayor of
Chisinau (with a mostly unconvincing team of party colleagues). Compared to
many other Moldovan politicians he seems human, not a stiff political robot
(here is Chirtoaca’s performance in Russsian on Gagazia
TV). The Liberal Democrats – have a less
charismatic and less popular leader, but a good team of lawyers, former
diplomats, businessmen and economists. Both parties are rather young,
relatively modern and on an upward spiral. The third opposition party Moldova
Noastra is dominated by politicians from the 90s and is on a firm downward
spiral. It is not clear if they will make it into the new parliament.

A year ago there were some 7-8 opposition parties with some political
visibility in Moldova
(they still exist but their irrelevance is clearer than ever before). But now
the opposition is much more consolidated. It looks young-ish, has rather
functioning political parties, is entrenched in the political system and
supported by some 35-40% of the electorate (while the Communists have 40-45%).

The opposition in most other post-Soviet states, bar Ukraine, scores
much worse on most accounts. In Russia
the opposition is squabbling, marginal and cannot even make it into the
parliament. In Azerbaijan
it is the same. In both countries the opposition has its roots in the 90s and
its potential for growth is uncertain as youngsters are more interested in
doing business or joining the government. In Georgia the opposition seems quite
popular, but it is more divided and it is virtually not
represented in the parliament which pushes politics onto the streets
(Saakashvili’s United Georgia controls 119 deputies in the Georgian parliament
while the Georgian “United opposition” and the “Republican party” obtained 19
seats (17+2) in May 2008 and refused to take them). The Georgian
opposition has stronger personalities than Moldova, but weaker and less
institutionalised parties. The bottom line is that the Moldovan opposition is
not hugely impressive, but by post-Soviet standards its scores relatively well.
The last year brought on the frontlines of politics a new generation of
politicians in the Liberal, Liberal Democratic the Democratic Parties (and
partly in the Communist party where young people are more visible than before).

Romania‘s
role

Immediately after the April riots the Moldovan government announced that Romania tried
to fuel a coup d’etat. It expelled the Romanian Ambassador, a few dozen
Romanian journalists, and imposed visas on Romania. But on July 24 the
Moldovan prosecutor general announced
that Romania
was not involved in staging any coup d’etat.

Russia
and China’s
role

As in run-up
to the April elections Russia
again did quite a lot to show support for the Communists. Medvedev and Putin
held a summit with Voronin in late June where Russia
promised half a billion dollars
credit to Moldova
to sooth the economic crisis. In July Voronin went to an informal CIS summit in
Moscow, but strangely enough Medvedev did not
have enough time for a bilateral with Voronin (but had time for the other 3 CIS
presidents of Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia who bothered to attend the
summit).

More surprising was the announcement a few days before the elections that China will
offer Moldova
a credit worth 1 billion USD. Leaving aside the solidarity of the two communist
parties of Moldova and China, I still don’t understand why China would offer Moldova a billion USD. More
surprising is that China’s
promised assistance to Moldova
is twice bigger than the Russian offer of support. I don’t exclude that most of
these money will never materialise and they are PR-money, not real credits.

Will there be new riots?

Most probably not. The government is much more prepared. The potential
protesters are much more scared. And the opposition parties are much more
reluctant to call people onto the streets. The EU is keeping an eye on the
situation. The Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorksi visited
Chisinau five days before the elections with the support of the Swedish EU
presidency to tell everyone to behave. There should not be any major drama
unfolding on the streets, but I expect two months of intense horse-trading for
the post of the president and a near permanent state of political (and
economic) crisis for the following couple of years.

PS: For Polish speakers here is an
interview I gave Gazeta Wyborcza on the Moldovan elections. Those who
understand Romanian are welcome to read my Romanian language blog http://npopescu.yam.ro/ with more opinions
on the Moldovan elections.