ADEPT | Gagauzia 2016 | Presidential 2016 | Elections 2015 | Bashkan 2015 | Gagauzia 2012 | Political Parties
Presumption of guiltiness
|
|
Sacred right to be independent…
Incumbent President Vladimir Voronin dissolved the Parliament on June 15, 2009, decreeing early parliamentary elections for the 29th of July. The Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) led by Vladimir Voronin has publicly promised to hold an aggressive and bitter campaign against the opposition at the early elections. In all likelihood and given the reactions, the PCRM’s purpose during the campaign for early elections is to take revenge against the liberal opposition, so that to make it regret the refusal to vote the PCRM candidate to the presidential seat. The presumption of guiltiness for the PCRM’s broken flight to fulfil good intentions is applied on the liberal opposition without any right to appeal. The key slogan of the PCRM is: “It’s now the time to regain our sacred right to independence, it’s now the time to protect our Motherland!” It suggests that the enemies will be killed, of course, by respecting legal norms, as acting President Vladimir Voronin assures.
So, the governors blame the enemies for the problems faced by Moldova after eight years of PCRM rule: economic-financial crisis, an antagonised and polarised political class, a society divided on multiple criteria, a deeper international isolation etc. The external enemy, Romania, undermines the independence of the Republic of Moldova; the internal enemy, liberal opposition, undermines the political stability to advantage the external enemy; the big international finance which challenged the global financial-economic crisis because of liberal approaches in the detriment of Marxist tackling is to blame for the economic crisis in the Republic of Moldova etc. The Motherland is in danger, all undermine it; just PCRM and its leader are building. The dialectical way to find enemies is typical to PCRM, but its leaders forgot their enthusiasm when they announced in 2007 the liberal revolution in Moldova, which served them somehow… The sacred right to be independent in deciding what policies are better for interests is extremely mobilising.
In this case, the election campaign of PCRM targets at a result which would absolve it of the necessity to cooperate with the opposition in order to configure the rule. In other terms, PCRM wants to win at least 3/5 of parliamentary seats. The PCRM leader is more optimistic, promising even 4/5 of seats. This goal itself shapes the bitterness and aggressiveness of the campaign promised by PCRM. A question arises here — if the April 7 events followed the April 5 elections, when no bitterness and aggressiveness were displayed, what should Moldovan citizens expect after a campaign when bitterness and aggressiveness were promised from the very beginning?
For your freedom … be master in your own home…
The liberal opposition responds to the PCRM on the same level. But replying reactions are induced from the rough and aggressive conduct of the ruling party. The presumption of guiltiness is applied on PCRM for usurpation of power, dissemination of corruption, impoverishment of country which forces hundreds of thousands of citizens to emigrate, systematic and premeditated violation of fundamental rights etc. In this context, the liberal opposition claims that the good intentions of PCRM have paved the path to April 7…
Besides, the rhetoric of the liberal opposition and the media supporting it has evolved over the limit when any understanding with the PCRM, especially the voting of a PCRM candidate for the presidential seat is equivalent to betrayal. The PPCD syndrome, which means the evolution of the Christian Democratic People’s Party after the April 4, 2005 vote, its collapse at the April 5, 2009 elections below the electoral threshold is an argument to block any agreements with the PCRM. During the campaign for early elections the liberal opposition combats the aggressiveness and bitterness of PCRM with its accusations, indicating the fact that the PCRM leader himself, Vladimir Voronin, ceased the political European integration partnership with the opposition in July 2007. Voronin opened the media war and the unprecedented harassment campaign against the opposition, involving the Prosecutor-General’s Office, Interior Ministry and other public institutions.
Even more, incumbent President Vladimir Voronin knows better than anybody else that the liberal opposition did not plan what he calls coup d’etat attempt. Really, on April 7, after the provokers incited protesters to vandalism and stormed the Parliament and Presidency buildings, the incumbent president was discussing with the liberal opposition leaders the way to stop the vandalism, not the way to deliver the rule. However, the government speculates the issue “Assault against Moldova” for electoral purposes. More than that, PCRM leaders expose their innocent astonishment on media outlets of the controlled holding, wondering why the opposition does not vote a PCRM-nominated president. In this respect, the offer of the liberals is fighting for freedom… and the right to control own fate… until…
Political war must stop…
On background of intransigent attitudes of the two platforms described above, a compromise offer was somehow required — the centrist platform. It is made of two strange components based on discontentment of their representatives with their situation after the April 5 elections. A former key character of PCRM, former Chairman of the Parliament Marian Lupu, is an electoral engine for the early parliamentary elections placed on the social-democratic gauge railway of the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM). The project of Marian Lupu has fuelled many interpretations and suspicions, inclusively because of the call for ceasing the political war. He maintains the presumption of guiltiness for political destabilisation and institutional blockage at a different extent for the infallible PCRM and morally winning liberals. But the strongest and most influent is also guiltiest in case of conflict — an axiom.
Certainly, the merit of the birth of the centrist platform belongs to PCRM, but it counts just the fact if this was done consciously or involuntarily. Therefore, it would be speculated till the end of the election campaign if the Marian Lupu project is a hyper-intelligent product of Marc Tcaciuc or the result of some dysfunctions inside of PCRM. Indeed, Marian Lupu has left the PCRM two days before the meeting of PCRM staff, at which PCRM leader Vladimir Voronin disclosed the way he operates the power vertical. The revelations raise inconvenient questions. In particular, at the June 12, 2009 meeting with PCRM activists Vladimir Voronin admitted in front of party mates (one of them recorded the speech, which was available to the public later) that the last seven years he “served in fact as prime minister, too.” Voronin made these revelations to stress how weak and helpless former premier Tarlev was in his opinion. But why did he keep Tarlev as head of executive for seven years — this is the question.
In principle, there are just two answers to this question, with both of them revealing very negative facts for the PCRM. The first answer would be that Vladimir Voronin needed a feeble premier to take over his competences with the purpose to build the power vertical. Otherwise, why did he keep Vasile Tarlev in that office for such a long time? If so, the accusations brought by the liberal opposition against Vladimir Voronin regarding the subversion of power get very interesting nuances.
The second answer which would combat the first response is that Vladimir Voronin did not find a person worth of being premier among the 30,000 PCRM members. But this version would hit the image of 30,000 comrades of Vladimir Voronin. And sadder for the 30,000 PCRM members is that no PCRM member was worthy of taking over the seat of prime minister after the dismissal of Vasile Tarlev, the way it happened with the presidential seat. The PCRM candidate to the seat of chief of state, Andrei Neguta, did not get any vote from party comrades. Instead, the candidacy of non-member Zinaida Greceanii won all the votes from the PCRM faction. One more innocent question goes here: is the main quality of Mrs. Greceaniui very likely to the one of Vasile Tarlev? If she was elected chief of state, she would have allowed the Chairman of the Parliament, Vladimir Voronin, rule the state as well?
As PCRM member Marian Lupu was right to be discontent with promotion of non-members to key functions of our statehood who are being cultivated the feeling of endless gratitude for promotion to higher rankings, while their real competences are confiscated by the charitable promoter. Such promoted have nothing to do but to take care of the Republic of Moldova not to disappear from the world map.
Conclusions
- The results of early parliamentary elections will be marked by the April 7 events and institutional blockage — incapacity of a political class antagonised to the limit when compromise decisions may be made to elect a chief of state. At the early elections Moldova’s citizens will be referees of a conflict born but unsettled by the Moldovan political class. That’s why a high turnout is very important.
- Citizens will have to support three basic platforms. Two of them are antagonistic, directly involved in the April 7 developments — the PCRM and the aggregated liberals. The third platform — of reconciliatory democrats — could be in the running. However, there are too many unknowns in the centrist project. Moldova did not have any political project to be born and gain success in less than two months until now.
- Paradoxically, the centrist project could be successful if both the right and the left criticize it, as this would enlarge its niche of action. The situation provides appreciable opportunities to combat the criticism by the right and left with making a value-added for the centrist platform. The conciliative electoral offers could persuade citizens who are disgusted by a political war which aims at reciprocal destruction of key antagonists, without any perspective of compromise, as already proved.
- Eventual configurations of the post-electoral coalition will depend on sizes of parliamentary representation. They are unknown at this stage. Just one fact is known: the PCRM will win a lot of mandates due to unlimited financial, administrative and propagandistic resources. To eventually cross the electoral threshold, the vehement assaults on the centrist project will help the PDM decide building eventual post-electoral coalitions. In the event the aggregated liberals will insist in an aggressive manner to accuse the Lupu project of being communist, the PDM will simply have to award them victory. It would do this because the aggregated liberals wanted to be right even with the cost of losing a possible ally, not because the Lupu project was communist from the very beginning.
- If the PCRM will lay essential obstacles to the Lupu project, they will consolidate the match of the opposition, being able to prolong the political destabilisation for one more year, when other early elections will be held. In this case, a compromise solution would be fulfilling the dream of the acting president, Vladimir Voronin, to become a kind of Moldovan Deng Xiaoping. Indeed, the first step to this direction was done, as the phrase goes, every Deng Xiaoping has his Tiananmen, and what followed after the 7th of April may be credited.
- Given the context, one may affirm that all other parties which joined the election campaign will play secondary roles of supporting or, on the contrary, undermining the three platforms.