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On July 8 Moldova officially enters a tension-filled campaign for repeat parliamentary elections, barely three months after holding regular quadrennial elections. The repeat elections are scheduled for July 29, to be followed by the election of a new head of state in the new parliament. The presidency is technically vacant, the parliament is dissolved, and the government serves in a caretaker capacity with limited powers (Moldpres, Basapres, July 1-6).
The violent clashes in April and subsequent confrontation in the aborted parliament are casting a dark shadow over the campaign for repeat elections. The nominal Communist Party had won the parliamentary elections on April 5 for the third consecutive time, with the European observation mission evaluating these elections (as the preceding ones) positively overall and the outcome as legitimate. The opposition's three nominal liberal parties, however, forced the holding of repeat elections, exploiting a constitutional loophole to block the election of a new state president in the newly elected parliament.
The opposition parties have never condemned the April 7 riots, when mobs including the opposition's sympathizers overran the parliament and presidential buildings and set them on fire. The police and security services were caught unawares, failed to protect the state buildings for fear of causing loss of life, and reacted only after the riots by using unlawful, indiscriminate brutality. Exacerbating the situation, the authorities appointed a puppet commission to investigate those events. The opposition parties never criticized the attack on the state buildings. Election-related rioting, previously unthinkable in Moldova, must now be regarded as a potential risk in this campaign's inflamed atmosphere and particularly in the upcoming election's aftermath.
Political polarization seems irreparably deep, with both camps striving for maximum mobilization of their respective groups of committed voters. The rhetoric of hate and revanche has reached dangerous levels and could grow even worse during the repeat electoral campaign.
The presidential team remains in the grip of a bunker mentality ever since April 7. Acting President Vladimir Voronin (he serves in an interim capacity pending the election of a new head of state by the new parliament) often loses control of his emotions, language, and manners during his public speeches and interactions with the media. The law-enforcement apparatus is under-resourced and inept.
Voronin and his team have proved unable to cope with the first serious internal security challenge they have ever encountered. Previous challenges to the state---the 1992 Russian military intervention and the 2002-04 "federalization" scheme---were external ones. The events since this April have occasioned a crisis of state leadership at the highest political level.
The irate president, some of his associates, and mass media loyal to them portray the three opposition parties as "anti-state," "fascist," and "coup-plotters." This un-statesmanlike response has been provoked by the opposition's labeling the authorities as "bolshevik," "criminal," and "usurper," and the twice-elected head of state as "the brute" and "that beast." Such unsettling exchanges, along with threats of retribution, are taking place on a daily basis in the local media on both sides.
Two opposition newspapers in Chisinau had introduced this style already during the 2005 electoral campaign and in its aftermath. At that time, opposition factions (in a different configuration) rejected the electoral outcome and demanded repeat elections despite the European observers' positive assessment, as if presaging the 2009 events. During the intervening four years, those two newspapers escalated the incendiary rhetoric, turning it into a defining element of Moldova's political scene. Opposition parties, the Communist Party's press, and Voronin himself adopted a highly belligerent style after the 2007 local elections, unleashing a process of mutual vilification between the two now-irreconcilable camps. This process is intensifying during the current campaign and could lead to uncontrolled outbreaks of violence again.
The Communist Party's electoral campaign is being managed more professionally, compared with the presidential institution or the law enforcement apparatus. The most competent presidential advisers are assigned to lead the party's electoral campaign. With top adviser Marc Tcaciuc fixated on the campaign, his rivals and detractors in the police and procuracy have gained in political influence at the top. Despite their track record of incompetence and sometimes brutality, Voronin has become more dependent on such figures as Internal Affairs Minister Gheorghe Papuc, or Prosecutor-General Valeriu Gurbulea, during this dangerous political crisis.
The cabinet of ministers remains non-political and is rated as the most professional ever in Moldova by Western economic and financial officials. The opposition parties cannot match that quality but are campaigning for change at any cost, with potentially detrimental effects on economic governance, if the opposition forms the new government or blocks the continuation of the present one. Meanwhile, the opposition has proved incapable of running the Chisinau municipal council, where nominal liberals have been in charge since 2007. The Communist Party is capitalizing on the opposition's mismanagement at city level as a salient theme in this campaign.
Whether the country can emerge unshaken from this protracted internal confrontation is far from certain. Moldova's weak state institutions and its undeveloped multi-party system may prove unable to deal effectively with this unprecedented challenge to the state in its heartland on the right bank of the Dniester. On the left bank, Tiraspol's secessionist authorities have found a new, potent argument to justify full separation from a Moldova they portray as dysfunctional, unpredictable, and destabilized by pro-Romania opposition parties.
The European Union's Special Representative for Moldova, Kalman Mizsei, stationed almost permanently in Chisinau since March, has appealed to all political forces to refrain from mutual vilification and conduct a civilized campaign. His latest statement is urging post-election reconciliation irrespective of the elections' outcome, for the soonest possible resumption of E.U.-assisted reforms (Moldpres, Basapres, July 3). Mizsei's high credibility in Chisinau has helped mitigate tensions in the volatile situation there.
Vladimir Socor
July 7, 2009—Volume 6, Issue 129
NEWLY FORMED MOLDOVAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY FILLS VACUUM IN POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
by Vladimir Socor
Along with the crisis and lame-duck situation of state institutions, Moldova's multi-party system has also revealed its deficient substance. The Communist Party, anachronistic as such, has nevertheless proven far stronger than all the other parties in terms of mass appeal and internal discipline. The party is highly centralized and being run from the office of President Voronin, who acts concurrently as executive head of state and party leader, contravening the constitution's letter and spirit. The party's communist label has very little in common with the actual content, however.
The self-described right-wing liberal parties have even less in common with liberalism. The Liberal Party is a Romanian national-irredentist party; the Liberal-Democrat Party is a tycoon-led initiative, with resources to recruit civil-society experts; and Our Moldova (applicant to join the Liberal International), is a final effort by second-echelon nomenklatura veterans to regain political office from those who did keep the Communist label for themselves.
While claiming to be better Europeans than the Communist Party, the three opposition parties rejected the European observation mission's assessment of the April 5 elections; they ignored E.U. officials' persistent advice to avoid the repeat elections; and they unceremoniously sent the E.U.'s High Representative Javier Solana back to Brussels from Chisinau empty-handed. The three opposition parties also rejected the Moldovan constitutional court's validation of the election results. Defiance of a constitutional court verdict had been inconceivable (just as as political riots had been unthinkable) in Moldova until now.
The missing link in this political landscape is a European-minded centrist or left-of-center party under credible leadership, transcending the antagonism between extremes and providing an element of balance to the political system. Such a party has emerged when Marian Lupu, chairman of the 2005-2009 parliament, quit the Communist Party in June and took over the small Democratic Party of Moldova. The hastily revamped party managed at the last moment to register its list of candidates for the campaign (Moldpres, Basapres, July 1, 6).
This party demarcates itself from the Communist Party on its left and the multiple liberal parties on its right, in ways that offer a distinct political choice to voters. The Democratic Party proposes to rise above the fray and reintroduce basic civility to Moldova's political process. It is not linked with big-business or other specific group interests. This Democratic Party's top candidates form the most distinguished team in terms of education, professional experience, polyglot abilities and international exposure. The team is unambiguously Western-orientated, focused on the European Union, and U.S.-friendly, though free from illusions about seeking NATO membership for Moldova. The party can still capitalize on Lupu's high profile recognition in the country as chairman of the parliament until a few months ago. That post is the second-highest in the land and Lupu's personal rating is still second only to President Voronin's.
On the divisive issue of national identity the Democratic Party's top team is neither Moldovan-fundamentalist as most communists, nor Romanian-fundamentalist as many of the liberals are. Rather, it professes a distinct Moldovan political identity, which can easily harmonize with a Romanian cultural identity. The party leaders aspire to re-dignify the Moldovan identity after its long travails: relegation to inferior social status under Russian and Soviet rule, non-recognition of a Moldovan identity by Romania, repudiation of the Moldovan identity by part of the local intelligentsia, and the discrediting of Moldovan identity by poorly educated, partially Russified communists.
The Democratic Party faces daunting material hurdles, however. Its initial electoral base was 3 percent in April, only two months before Lupu took over. The renewed party started late in the repeat elections with meager financing, few and weak territorial organizations, practically no access to administrative resources, and no media of its own (unlike the three opposition parties, all of whom have some media organizations behind them). These handicaps cannot be corrected in any significant way during a campaign limited to four weeks. The party can realistically hope to enter the new parliament by clearing the 5 percent threshold and perhaps garner two percentage points above that threshold.
That result depends, however, on demonstrating that this party truly differs from the other parties in style and substance. As Lupu recognized from the outset, a statesmanlike campaign style can attract many uncommitted voters to the Democratic Party when the other significant parties are demonizing each other. This party's chance resides in highlighting that contrast, avoiding personal attacks and invective, and rising above the fray -- a posture characteristic of Lupu during his chairmanship of the parliament.
In its appeal to voters, the Democratic Party proposes to stake out the left-of-center zone on the political spectrum. That zone remains vacant after the Communist Party's 2007-08 reversal of promises to reform itself into a European-type, Socialist or Social-Democrat party. Consequently, several Russia-leaning small parties are targeting the left-of-center groups of voters in Moldova. The Democratic Party can potentially fill that niche.
As a small party, the Democratic Party can realistically hope to hold the balance of power in the new parliament between the communists and the opposition bloc. It will in that case, position itself to negotiate with both camps and possibly arbitrate between the two. Consequently, the Democratic Party cannot afford during the electoral campaign to rule out post-election negotiations with either side. Democratic Party leaders are nevertheless being challenged to rule out negotiations with either side in advance, presumably as a demonstration of political virginity. By giving up its negotiating options in either direction, however, the party would risk marginalization through loss of bargaining leeway. In that case, Moldova's political system would lose a much-needed stabilizing factor during the post-election period.
Vladimir Socor
June 22, 2009—Volume 6, Issue 119
MOLDOVA EMBARKS ON TURBULENT CAMPAIGN FOR REPEAT ELECTIONS
by Vladimir Socor
Exercising his interim powers under the constitution, Moldova's outgoing president Vladimir Voronin has dissolved the parliament that was elected as recently as April 5 and has called new parliamentary elections for July 29. Voronin's decree, issued on June 15, had become unavoidable after the opposition twice boycotted the election of the new head of state in the newly elected parliament. Under the constitution, new parliamentary elections must be held if the deputies twice fail to elect the state president with at least 61 votes in the 101-seat chamber. The nominally liberal opposition used its blocking minority to force the nominally communist election winners to call new elections. Today (June 22) Voronin is meeting with Russia's top leaders in Moscow in a frantic quest for their benevolent neutrality in the electoral campaign (Moldpres, June 21).
The nominal Communist Party held 60 seats, one less than necessary for electing the head of state in the newly-elected, now-dissolved parliament. It nominated the acting Prime Minister Zenaida Greceanai, a respected economist who is politically unaffiliated (as is almost the entire cabinet), for president in both rounds of voting. The three nominal liberal parties, however, with 41 seats between them, deliberately forced the holding of repeat parliamentary elections. Rather than nominating a common candidate or simply voting against Greceanai, the opposition leaders ordered a boycott of the vote for fear that at least a few of their deputies would vote for her in the secret balloting. Opposition leaders and their more militant associates openly feared that some of their deputies could be bribed to cast their secret ballots for Greceanai. (By contrast, the communists did not fear that their deputies might be bribed into sabotaging the vote). More prosaically, opposition leaders also feared that some of their backbenchers would vote for Greceanai to avoid new elections and the risk of losing their hard-won parliamentary seats.
The date of the new elections, June 15, is the earliest possible one under the constitution and relevant legislation. Even so, it means that Moldova will not have a fully functioning parliament and government and new president until late August at least; amounting to at least six months of uninterrupted political campaigning in a poisoned atmosphere, institutional vacuum, a deepening economic crisis, and a wait-and-see attitude by international organizations and the lending institutions.
The electoral campaign is now starting from scratch with new voter registration lists, new slates of candidates, and many political parties beyond the four that had entered the now-dissolved parliament. In one of its last acts, the now-dissolved, communist-dominated parliament modified the electoral law, reducing the representation threshold from 6 percent to 5 percent, so as to encourage smaller parties at the expense of the main opposition parties (Basapres, Moldpres, June 15 - 21).
The post-election period from April 5 to date has witnessed an unraveling of governance and of democratic practice in Moldova, on the side of the authorities and of the opposition, respectively and jointly. On April 7, a mob of diverse social composition including the opposition's sympathizers had seized, ransacked, and set on fire the buildings of the parliament and presidency in Chisinau. Opposition leaders and editorialists, whose rhetoric had been partly responsible for inciting the violence (presumably without envisioning such consequences), have failed ever since to condemn the vandalism unambiguously. Instead, opposition leaders and editorialists are still trying to accuse the government of having set the two buildings on fire. The authorities, initially paralyzed, finally overreacted through brutal and indiscriminate beatings of alleged perpetrators in police custody. Without a scintilla of evidence, Voronin and members of his team are continually accusing Romania of having instigated the trouble. Overstating his case, Voronin has failed to enlist European Union support against Romanian President Traian Basescu's national-irredentist rhetoric, which does provide moral aid and comfort to elements in the opposition.
The Moldovan opposition (in parallel with Georgia's radical groups) has openly defied the OSCE's and European Union's election assessments and the E.U.'s post-election attempts to mediate. The Western election observers had evaluated Moldova's elections as correct on the whole, its outcome reflecting voters' choice. During the intervening period, E.U. diplomats urged the opposition to recognize the outcome and work in the new parliament. Opposition leaders essentially brushed the E.U. aside. Two of the three opposition partites negotiated behind the scenes with the communist leaders for a possible deal, but all sides mismanaged the attempt. Voronin's team relentlessly accused the opposition leaders of having plotted a coup, even as the negotiations were ongoing with the same individuals toward a political deal and coalition government (which would have proven dysfunctional in any case). For their part, the opposition leaders remain captive to their own rhetoric and that of their editorialists, which continually depicts any political deal-making as treason and a "Judas-like" act.
The pre-election campaign had already been marked by a deep polarization and hate-filled rhetoric to an extent previously inconceivable in Moldova. The post-election violence was even more unthinkable, in light of Moldova's track record of correct elections and social tranquillity in general. The electoral campaign now getting underway may exacerbate the political strife beyond any reasonable limits. Both sides are persisting with strategies of acute polarization of society, intolerance of political opponents, and personal attacks that will make it even more difficult for political parties to cooperate in the next parliament, unless a centrist force emerges during the repeat electoral campaign.
Eurasia Daily Monitor. The Jamestown Foundation
July 7, 2009—Volume 6, Issue 129
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