Moldova’s relations with the development partners definitely worsened with the change in the electoral system and the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova is concerned about the situation in which Moldova found itself after the adoption of this system that is designed to keep particular parties in power. If Moldova does not take into account the opinion of the foreign partners, it could lose its credibility, deputy chairman of the PLDM Alexandru Bujorean said in the public debate “Relations between Moldova and foreign partners following adoption of mixed electoral system” that was staged by IPN News Agency.
According to him, the PLDM is a member of the family of the European People’s Party, which has the largest group in the European Parliament, and the statements made this party and European officials were rather harsh. These condemned the actions of the ruling alliance and the decision to amend the electoral system. The statements made by the EPP and ALDE, whereby the European institutions were requested to assess the decline in the rule of law and democratic standards in the Republic of Moldova, to stop any financing, to apply the strictest conditionality to any future financial assistance and to re-evaluate the Association Agreement as soon as possible.
The deputy chairman of the PDM noted that all these requests are catastrophic for the Republic of Moldova. “Regrettably, the representatives of the PDM and PSRM do not have the slightest idea as to the effort made by the PLDM at internal and foreign levels for this agreement to be signed and then ratified. Hard work was done and if this agreement is re-evaluated the ordinary people will be affected first of all,” he stated.
Alexandru Bujorean said the PLDM once promoted the mixed-member electoral system, but this happened in 2008. “In that period, there weren’t suspicions that the business will influence the election of MPs. I’m absolutely sure that if this system had been implemented in 2008, many representatives of the Democratic Party and the Party of Socialists today wouldn’t have known how Parliament looks from inside,” he stated.
According to the Lib-Dem, the government is not aware of the consequences of this step. If the European Commission, hypothetically speaking, includes the EU-Moldova relations in the agenda of the European Parliament, the political reactions will turn into a concrete decision adopted by vote. “We do not speak about the annulment of the Association Agreement. This would really be a catastrophe and regression. We speak about what these officials demand – the re-evaluation of the agreement,” he stated, adding that if this is done Moldova, which is the poorest state in the region, will suffer the economic consequences as its business entities will not have the same access to the EU market.
The public debate “Relations between Moldova and foreign partners following adoption of mixed electoral system” was the 75th installment of the series of debates “Developing political culture by public debates” that was organized with support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.
