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Political crisis runs the risk to go on

The results of the July 29, 2009 early elections confirmed that the Moldovan electorate generally maintains its political preferences despite factors that give birth to social and political cleavages. In this regard, one may say that after the political crisis linked to the April 7 developments and blocked election of a chief of state the Moldovan electorate actually reiterated its electoral options from the April 5 elections. Changes in electoral options were linked to the withdrawal of the former head of the Parliament, Marian Lupu, from the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) and the approximately twofold decline of the number of electoral candidates at the July 29 elections. Thus, while parties incapable to cross the electoral threshold won approximately 15 percent at the April 5 elections, they garnered just 4 percent on July 29. Of course, electoral segments have strengthened after small parties refrained from participating in elections; that means some electoral sympathies migrated within certain value segments, especially social-democratic and liberal, with the latter being covered by three parties — Liberal Party (PL), Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM) and Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN). These changes were enough to make the PCRM lose the monopoly on political authority.

In these circumstances, keeping a strained political situation and perpetuating the institutional blockage bring the possibility of early parliamentary elections in 2010. Although five political parties will be represented in the Parliament, they will make in fact two antagonistic forces with a comparable weight. The Alliance for European Integration (AIE) made by PLDM, PL, PDM and AMN reduces the ratio of forces to 53 vs. 48 mandates. In this context, a series of constitutional, legal, political and administrative problems occur:

• The AIE members have plans to contest the legality of running the office of chief of state by the president after the latter was elected member and chairman of the Parliament. As well, they want to contest the compatibility of the new seat of legislator of Vladimir Voronin with the office of incumbent president of the Republic of Moldova;
• The procedure of nominating a candidate to the seat of prime minister is problematical so far. Given the political conflict, the incumbent president could nominate a candidate on the basis of party interests, not of perspective to avoid institutional blockages;
• Reaching a compromise with the view to elect a new chief of state through a secret vote, with a qualified majority of 3/5 votes;
• Paradoxically, the eventual success of AIE could be assured by the still powerful PCRM, as the latter could make the AIE strengthen in order to resist to pressures of PCRM. The weakening of pressures would reveal the incompatibilities of AIE components. The fact that two AEI components contested in CEC, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Justice the redistribution of mandates accordingly to the D’Hondt formula prescribed by the Electoral Code indicates the anger of the parliamentary majority. In general, this example raises concern in terms of professionalism of AIE components, which mix up common things such as “equal voting” principle and modality of redistribution of votes garnered by parties which did not cross the 5-percent electoral threshold to bigger parties.

The distorted representation of Moldovan citizens on regional, ethnic and gender criteria is so far another source of concern besides polarisation of political spectre.

Sociological picture of members of the 18^th Legislature

	PCRM	PLDM	PL	PDM	AMN	Lawmakers (members) of the Parliament
Overview
Number of parliamentarians	48	18	15	13	7	101
Non-party members	12	2	-	-	-	14
Average age (years old)	47.9	43.7	48.3	44.2	52.4	47.1
Number of women	20	1	2	2	-	25
Residence of parliamentarians[1]
Chisinau municipality	31	12	12	13	6	74
Centre	7	1	2	-	1	11
North	7	3	1	-	-	11
South	1	2	-	-	-	3
Gagauzia	2	-	-	-	-	2
Transnistria	-	-	-	-	-	0
Occupation[2]
President of Republic of Moldova	1	-	-	-	-	1
Central administration	7	-	-	2	-	9
Former members of the precedent Parliament	36	13	11	1	6	67
Mayors	-	1	1	-	-	2
Local public administration	2	-	2	-	-	4
SRL	1	1	-	1	-	3
NGO	2	2	-	2	-	6
Jobseekers	1	1	1	3	-	6
Professional education[3]
Economists	12	1	1	3	1	18
Jurists	12	6	3	3	3	27
Political researchers	5	-	-	1	1	7
Diplomats	3	1	1	2	-	7
Engineers	9	1	2	3	3	18
Agrarians	4	1	-	-	-	5
Teachers	7	3	3	-	-	13
Historians	7	2	-	3	1	13
Journalists	-	-	-	2	-	2
Doctors	3	2	3	1	-	9
Philologists	-	-	2	-	-	2
Theologians	-	1	-	-	-	1

Five PCRM principles vs. five AIE principles to overcome the crisis

Two weeks before the July 29 elections PCRM leader Vladimir Voronin has released at a news conference five principles capable to lead to a national post-electoral consensus:

• Remedying the economic crisis by maintaining stability of financial system and current standards, guarantees and commitments;
• Holding a common legislative and political activity aimed at the European modernisation of Moldova. For this purpose, Voronin indicated the “start, with the active mediation of European partners, of negotiations aimed to stabilise the interstate relations between Moldova and Romania, which would end with the signing of the border treaty and basic political treaty.” The second principle envisages among others the continual professional reformation of the public broadcaster, demilitarisation of security organs, and signing of a new agreement with the European Union, which would provide Moldova with higher-lever freedoms;
• Recognising the reintegration of the country as No.1 task of Moldovan statehood;
• Developing in continuation the national policy of Moldova based on consolidation and support for Moldovan identity;
• Maintaining and developing Moldova’s partnership with the Russian Federation and increasing Moldova’s efforts to develop multilateral cooperation within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

As well, the PCRM leader stressed that his party “is ready to build a broad ruling coalition with all political parties which will accede to the Parliament, shall they accept these principles.” According to Voronin, political forces from Moldova give the following alternative, the least the PCRM would like people to realise the new realities:

• The coherent respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and opening to integration into EU and CIS, this being the platform of PCRM;
• The accession to NATO, withdrawal from CIS and undermining of strategic partnership with Russia — all of them the PCRM want to blame for the alliance made of PL, PLDM, AMN and PDM, which it described as “radical rightwing forces”. In the context, Voronin called “traitor” the former PCRM member, Marian Lupu, who left the party and became PDM leader.

PCRM maintained its positions after elections, but softened its messages against Marian Lupu. On August 8, 2009, after the elections and some consultations, PLDM, PL, PDM, AMN built the ruling coalition called Alliance for European Integration (AIE), which committed itself in front of society to fulfil the following major goals:

• To restore the state based on the rule of law, which means guaranteeing respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; ensuring the freedom of the media and reforming the public broadcasting; urgently remedying the consequences of the usurpation of power in state by effectively separating the legislative, executive and judicial authorities and ensuring their cooperation; ensuring the democratic functioning of state institutions; guaranteeing the independence of the judicial system and finishing reforms in the area; reforming the security forces in accordance with European standards; conducting a complete and unbiased investigation of the April 2009 events by making a credible and non-political investigative commission with the participation of independent experts and representatives of international institutions.
• To settle the social-economic crisis and achieve an economic growth, which means: working out and implementing a programme against economic and financial crisis; poverty reduction; fair and honest management of public funds; optimising administrative expenses and reorienting savings to social sector; liberalising economy, combating monopolies and excessive bureaucracy, optimising the fiscal and financial system; stopping the abusive government’s involvement in entrepreneurship; restoring and strengthening relations with international financial institutions.
• To decentralise the governing and to ensure the local autonomy, which means: destroying the “vertical of the power” and combating the discrimination on political criteria in the budgetary process and while allocating investments to local public authorities; ensuring the autonomy of local public authorities in compliance with European standards;
• The territorial reintegration of the Republic of Moldova, which means: continuing the negotiations on settlement of the Transnistrian conflict; ensuring the transparency of the settlement process and finding a viable mechanism for the complex resolution of the Transnistrian conflict;
• The European integration of the Republic of Moldova and promotion of an equable, coherent and responsible foreign policy, which means: negotiating and signing an association agreement between the Republic of Moldova and the European Union; promoting strategic partnerships with the United States and Russian Federation; restoring and strengthening good neighbourhood relations with Romania and Ukraine; cancelling the visa requirements for Romanian citizens, and signing the small border traffic agreement; recovering Moldova’s world image and regaining confidence inside and outside.

PCRM and AIE released ballons d’essai

On August 21, 2009, the four parliamentary political forces representing the AIE released the “initiative to open a dialogue between parliamentary parties in order to agree on solutions to build the new organs of the central administration” and invited the PCRM chairman to attend a meeting of leaders of parliamentary factions on August 25. AIE stressed that it calls for a dialogue not negotiations. This way, AIE would like to inform the public that it has arguments to persuade the PCRM that it should resign itself and cede the rule inclusively by giving the eight votes for free to the AIE candidate for the seat of chief of state, without claiming the least political-administrative reward or guarantees for a certain attitude towards PCRM and its leaders. Acting this way, AIE leaders claim in fact that they could wake up remorse among PCRM lawmakers, followed by resignation for the inheritance this party leaves to AIE after eight years of governing.

The next day, on August 22, the PCRM convoked the plenary of the Central Committee (CC) and considered the post-electoral political situation and set the tasks of the party for the near future:

• PCRM is the indisputable winner of the July 29, 2009 parliamentary elections and this state of things is the origin of all other attitudes;
• PCRM is ready for any further political battle scenarios, inclusively becoming an opposition. “If a political party is not capable to pass to opposition at any time from ideological and principle-based reasons, it does not deserve the rule. If any communist is afraid of the burden of life in opposition, if he loses human dignity and nobility in front of a danger and even sharpest repressions, he should be part of political clans which introduce themselves as centrist and other sorts of liberals”;
• Early elections shall be avoided. “This would be the worst way for our country, which would fuel destabilisation and all Moldovan society would lose”;
• PCRM will focus on another direction. “We see that the rightwing coalition faces a chronic impasse — neither hither nor thither. That means that our party has to propose its leftwing coalition, an anti-crisis coalition, if you want, based on the five principles I have risen, which have been made loud during the electoral campaign. Our strategic priority is that the majority faction of PCRM was not made of the artificial union of several parties with contradictory values and programmes. Our faction was made by electors! Therefore, our task is to dialogise with the political forces which are ready to get rid of their political selfishness and take a decisive patriotic position”;
• PCRM will do its best to turn the dialogue with all interested political forces into a stable anti-crisis coalition of political parties which focus on Moldovan statehood, social equity and democracy.
• PCRM has found out that “the attempt of the four political parties represented in the newly-elected Parliament to make a so-called ruling coalition called Alliance for European Integration has failed. PL, PLDM, PDM and AMN failed in one month to reach a mutually acceptable agreement on distribution of functions, agree on flow chart of this structure, basic principles of interior and foreign policy of the Republic of Moldova. In this situation, PCRM fears that holding a dialogue with a political structure which is present just in the imagination of some media outlets is impossible. Such a dialogue would not have a focus, a purpose and a partner to plead from a common position.”
• PCRM will seek a distinct dialogue with parliamentary parties with the purpose to build a centre-left coalition.

This is the intransigent picture of the two political forces before the constitution sitting of the new Parliament on August 28, 2009.

PCRM and AIE enter procedural confrontations

One may affirm that the PCRM/CC plenary has set tactical tasks, which once achieved would give room for an eventual strategic victory. The plenary also aimed to maintain the moral of the party after the results of the recent parliamentary elections were much worse than expected. It discussed “psycho-therapeutic” measures should any communist parliamentarians go out of control during the secret election of chief of state. The second task of the plenary was to raise a disdaining attitude towards AIE and decide not to discuss with this alliance like it would not exist as a distinct functional entity. The third task was to take over the initiative in the design of the new administration as political force, claiming to be the strongest and best to become a centre of coagulation of the new governance, on the basis of a centre-left coalition. If the three tactical tasks are fulfilled, the PCRM will keep the unity of the party and faction on one hand and will split the AIE on the other hand. In consequence, the PCRM would be closer to the strategic victory — keeping the rule as the most influent political force.

PCRM is taking actions through procedural games, seizing the opportunity that the constitution sitting of the new Parliament was chaired by the eldest parliamentarian who is a PCRM member. As expected, the first sitting of the Parliament, ended with a procedural scandal. PCRM and AIE proved their antagonism. The PCRM game on reflexes of AIE proved that the first calculates better. The least, the procedures of making the leading organs of the Parliament would have developed faster, if AIE met the provisions of the Regulation invoked by PCRM to make the parliamentary factions. AIE invoked the emergent need to make the leading organs and finally got a reverse effect — the organisational procedures were postponed for at least one week because the PCRM decided to appeal to the Constitutional Court, contesting the election of PL leader Mihai Ghimpu as speaker of the Parliament before the official formation of the parliamentary faction of PCRM. This example shows that the heroic approach proved by AIE in procedural confrontations with PCRM undermines its strategic prospects, which should be rather based on reasonable approaches.

At the same time, PCRM does not fail any occasion to show that AIE is late to introduce the design of the new structure of central administration and distribute competences to AIE components, as it has promised before the first constitution sitting of the Parliament. Thus, the success of PCRM depends of the conduct and reactions of the four AIE components. So far, AIE succeeds to avoid giving major occasions for talks on eventual internal splitting, but the dynamism of the new government and takeover of the authority are jeopardised. Secondly, all actions and statements of PCRM seem to mean their eventual invocation in case of early parliamentary elections next year. This way, PCRM uses the election of Mihai Ghimpu as speaker of the Parliament to resuscitate some social phobias based on older cliches. In this situation, AIE has no choice but to turn to justifying messages.

Given the works of the PCRM plenary, AIE reactions and first events after the constitution sitting of the Parliament, one may say that parliamentary elections are very probable, 50/50. Of course, PCRM will fight to clamber the governing somehow, in order to get access to certain administrative levers, the least to compromise AIE. In this situation, after the AIE was built, the most important factor against PCRM actions would be to keep the AIE unity. In order to avoid internal conflicts while sharing posts, AIE components could try to focus on wider goals. In this respect:

• PL could focus on management of the Chisinau municipality, as it rules the city and 60 percent of Moldova’s economy is based there. It is important for chances of the deputy chairman of PL, Dorin Chirtoaca, to enjoy the consolidated support of AIE at the 2011 local elections. Otherwise, the AIE components could enter an open competition after one year, when preparations for local elections will be underway;
• PLDM has the necessary potential to focus on strengthening the central administration, especially law enforcement organs;
• PDM and PLDM could focus on economic reforms and international support for Moldova;
• Finally, AMN has the necessary potential to focus on reformation of local public administration, as 40 percent of district chairpersons represent AMN. The distribution of posts to AIE components could be based on the tasks above.

Finally, voting a non-partisan president and giving up the heroic behaviour aimed to defeat the opponent at all costs in the least problems and choosing a reasonable conduct would be the only reasonable compromise between AIE and PCRM.

 

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