The excellent result obtained by PSRM in the parliamentary elections on November 30 was perhaps the big surprise of the ballot. If some polls placed the Socialists around the electoral threshold, they managed to win over 20% of the votes and get 25 MP seats in the new Legislative. IPN set out to learn how PSRM managed to best all expectations in an interview by Eugen Muravschi with Ion Ceban, number four on PSRM's list of candidates.
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- Igor Dodon, head of the party, said once, during a press conference, that PSRM will get at least 15 MP seats, a number that today seems an underestimation: it got 25 seats, 10 more than announced. How did PSRM evaluate internally the result it would get?
-It's not a secret that everyone, all parties, do their own polls and we also did this. It allows us to see the party dynamics and learn if it grows or not. That's why, when he spoke about at least 15 seats, Mr. Dodon probably took into consideration not only the sociological estimation he had at hand, but also the multiple risks that existed in this campaign. These included the inability to vote of many citizens, which could have voted for PSRM, among others. I mean those who work in Russia and whose right to vote was restricted, illegally in our opinion, as we have 700,000 citizens there and the authorities opened only 5 ballot stations, which allowed for a maximum of 15,000 to vote. And we saw the huge queues at the Moldovan Embassy in Russia, in Sankt Peterburg, or Ramenskoe, in Moscow. And second – it's about the inability to vote of holders of Soviet passports. Although the government gives us statistics according to which there are only a few thousands of such citizens remaining, we have our own parallel statistics, because PSRM helped over 50,000 pensioners to renew their ID papers. It was a huge bureaucratic procedure for many people: there are citizens who applied for new ID papers in June and by the end of the electoral campaign still couldn't get their papers. Moreover, this category is a very specific one: elderly people with locomotory problems, who can't walk to the population registration offices, or with financial problems, who can't afford a longer trip. These are just some of the risks that Mr. Dodon took into consideration when he spoke about a minimum of 15 mandates.
- The result obtained by PSRM was for many of those outside the party a surprise. Compared to the estimations within the party, was this result a surprise for the Socialists as well or did you expect it?
- We expected a good result. If it was this one or not, I think it matters less now. It's important that we worked a lot and for two years, PSRM was the only party that was close to the people and their problems on a daily basis, a party truly for the citizens. It was often said that the Socialists are a kind of “political ambulance”, because wherever there was a problem, either some kind of injustice done to a pensioner or, if we talk about Chisinau, an illegal construction or a parcel of land, anything, a law that wasn't good for a category or a group of citizens, the Socialists were there.
- Several politicians talked about some polls that weren't made public and were allegedly done more professionally than the public ones. Was there such a secret poll that was known only to the political circles?
- Let's approach it differently. The worst thing that happened and is still happening is that the instruments used by sociologists, those presented to the public, broadcast on TV, have been totally discredited by the current government, because they put in the polls the numbers they liked and fully compromised all the organizations that do sociological studies. And it's truly sad because you'll find nowhere else such mistakes as big as those made by the Moldovan sociological institutions. It will undermine for the foreseeable future this mechanism and this approach. These institutions won't have any credibility, no matter how much they will try to show, to interpret and even if their findings will be truthful, nobody will believe them.
- Now we'll move on to how the Socialists worked in the electoral campaign. What was the general concept or strategy for this campaign?
- For us, the electoral campaign didn't begin on September 28 or 29, two months before the ballot, as reads the law. We have worked permanently. We have worked like a party must work. Not only before the elections and immediately after to forget, but we have worked during the whole existence in this format, in this formula, of the Party of Socialists. We have always been close to the people and tried to react to their needs. Sometimes we succeeded, sometimes we didn't. That's one thing.
Second, we knew that his campaign would be full of manipulation and dirt, that's why we set out to work with each voter in part long before the beginning of the campaign, to inform them about our priorities, which were clear: closer relations with Russia and integration in the Customs Union, with the whole arsenal of economic, social and political advantages of this option. We didn't sit like others on two chairs. We told the people clearly that this would be the option to solve, first of all, the social and economic problems.
Third, we came up with a program and we are the only party to come with a program that's not only declarations and slogans. We have worked hard on a program for developing the country on medium and long term. The presentation was made at the beginning of September, but before that we had numerous round tables, discussions with experts, with business people, with people in Moldova and outside Moldova. We are the only party that came with a clear vision, with economic and financial calculations, of how Moldova must develop, what we can do to make the economy grow and make the social sector equitable. We are the only ones who have shown that if we want to index the pensions by 20%, to offer young people a chance to obtain state support to treat infertility or buy a house without interest rates, we showed how these things can be achieved. And we tried, as much as our resources and legs allowed, to get as many competent people to talk directly to the citizens about this.
- You said you worked a lot directly with the citizen. Can you go a little bit more into details: how exactly did you work in this regard?
- We mostly tried to work with a cheap and simple method, not limited to the electoral campaign. For at least a year, our colleagues, party members, tried to go to the people, from house to house and from door to door, to tell them about the advantages and disadvantages of things like the geopolitical orientation of the country, or how we can act regarding social and economic issues. To put it shortly, the strong link between the party members and the citizens and feedback from the latter. Very often, it was namely in this process that many issues concerning the ordinary citizens came to surface and we tried to solve them. I mean, for example, legal consultations because there are many problems with the justice system today, especially for vulnerable people, who don't have money for a lawyer or even if they have, they don't have enough to go through a trial and win it, because we know how high the level of corruption is.
Socially, we tried to help and actually helped tens of thousands of people and offered them some kind of support. This was done together with businesses. We were able to direct and orient them: somebody needed washing powder for a family with many children or a washing machine for a kindergarten. We tried to interact, to act as intermediaries, because the party didn't have enough resources for this. We tried to be intermediaries and called upon, first of all, companies for whom this was also a kind of social campaign and meant a social benefit for them as economic entities and structures.
-What was the strategy for communication by video ads? If I am not mistaken, you had the most spots in this campaign.
- We had various kinds of spots. Overall, we had 6 or 7 broadcast on TV. It's no secret that we highlighted our main priorities: closer relations with Russia and integration in the Customs Union, two – the team and three – the program, where we tried to explain some of the most important thins in our social and economic program. We had other spots, 24, which provided a graphic presentation of our electoral platform and we used them for the Internet, for people who are familiar with it to learn more details about our platform thanks to the graphic presentation of what we want to do.
Also, we didn't use many printed materials in this campaign. It was what we used before the campaign as well: our newspaper - “The Socialists”, which we think has become a newspaper of the people, not only a party paper. In it we show the problems faced by people and try to find solutions. And two or three leaflets, in addition to the program as the single printed product in this whole campaign. We didn't have any other leaflets, booklets, etc.
- All the parties had printed materials. What was the attractive elements in the Socialists' leaflets that convinced the people to open and read them?
- We tried to make them accessible for every citizen. We didn't use a sophisticated language and even if we had, for example, a large economic and social program, with lots of theoretical notions, which are probably hard to understand for non-specialists, we tried to make an accessible summary as our electoral offer, without a lot of text, so that people could read it in half an hour and understand the essence.
- No party can really be after everyone's vote. Usually, a party tackles some issues that are specific to one or another social category. Which was the Socialists' target demographic?
- The Party of Socialists is, first of all, a Socialist party. For us, the human and his personality matters a lot and is in the center of our attention. We don't pump oil and don't extract natural gas, we don't have anything else than human capital and we think that any governance approach must adopt the perspective of investments into humans and not consider them expenses for the state budget. Our priorities are fields like education, healthcare and social protection. We think that the economy must work for the citizen and his well-being. I'd say this is what makes us different from other parties. This was our target demographic as well: people who find themselves in a more difficult situation, for whom we must solve a lot of daily problems.
But, let me tell you, after the feedback we have received from many companies, we had one of the best offers regarding the development of the business environment, things that Mr. Dodon and Mrs. Greceanii had done when leading the Cabinet. I mean here the 0 tax for reinvested profit, fiscal inspections once in 3 years, reducing taxes from 25% to 11%, reducing the VAT for natural gas to 5% and cutting taxes by 60% in order to raise the wages. Many of these things are theoretical, but the business people understand them.
- Many explain PSRM's good result by the attraction of a large chunk of PCRM's voters and the removal of the “Patria” Party from the electoral race. Was this a goal for the Socialists: to attract the Communists' voters?
- We had a very correct campaign towards our potential partners and I mean the leftist parties, which more or less share our views on foreign policy or the social-economic development. I want to underline that we are the only party that didn't attack the leftist parties. There were a few cases and they concerned the Party of Communists. We simply answered to this party's accusations and tonnes of lies targeting us. Otherwise, we thought things must go only in one direction and I won't hide it, I've said it on TV as well: we think Moldova has only one problem – the rightist parties that, under the slogan of European integration, didn't do anything else but steal from the state and humiliate the people.
If we attracted some voters from PCRM, we probably did, we probably attracted some voters from other parties as well. But that's how things work and it happens in the electoral pools of all parties: some voters migrate from PDM to PLDM, some from PLDM to PL, and others from PL to PDM. The problem is different: regardless of any migrations between electoral pools, the leftist parties that opt for the Customs Union, if we can still include PCRM here, obtained more votes combined that the pro-EU parties. We must understand that if there were a simultaneous referendum on the day of elections, the Eastern option would win.
The people chose, but this wasn't necessarily reflected in the distribution of seats in the Parliament, because there were many tricks, spoiler-parties and clone-parties, like those headed by Selin or Ruslan Popa, who had no message, nothing, and were created only to divide the leftist voters. The government parties were clever, they financed them and directed them to a single end: to make sure these votes don't go to the parties that actually have a chance to pass the electoral threshold then to be redistributed to successful parties, including the rightist ones.
- The Socialists managed a kind of premiere here: after many years in which PCRM had a monopoly on the left, now we have two large parties on this electoral segment. How will PSRM and PCRM co-exist? Will both parties be able to maintain strong electoral pools or will PSRM, as Igor Dodon said, “devour” PCRM?
- In general, any competition is a good thing, but it must be based on ideas and programs, not on dirt or lies or the color of one's shoes. We will support any good bill proposed by PCRM and we hope the attitude will be reciprocated. By the way, we aren't jealous regarding our proposals. We did propose many things and some of them were taken by the government parties and implemented and signed as their own initiatives. What will be next? We'll see. We are work-oriented. We have already announced that we will open public offices in each district, where we will provide free legal consultations to people. All our MPs will travel through the country, we don't plan on being a party that only sits in the Parliament or in its offices. We'll continue to work exactly as we have worked until now.
- About districts: where did PSRM work more in the electoral campaign? Did the party focus on districts where it thought it had more chances or did you have enough resources to campaign in all districts?
- PSRM took the most votes in 15 districts and these are northern, southern and central districts. PSRM was the most voted party in 19 big cities, including Comrat, Balti, Chisinau and others, so we aren't strong only in one region. We tried to be everywhere, but obviously, our resources were limited. In future, we'll try to mobilize more people and to be able to answer the needs of more citizens and to solve their problems.
- The billboard with Vladimir Putin seemingly had a big impact. Many considered this to be a kind of cheating: using the popularity of a foreign politician to get a good result in the national elections.
- I think that these “many”, who are actually the rightist parties, should comment less on this topic. Shall I remind them that two days before the ballot day, the Romanian President came here and some took pictures with him, called a press conference and appeared on TV alongside him. Three or four days before, we were visited by the presidents of Poland and Ukraine, and there many questions here in Moldova regarding the latter, Poroshenko.
I don't even mention all kinds of American and European commissioner-emissaries that visited Moldova and were used even in the electoral ads of some parties. Just check out Mr. Filat's party newspaper, with all kinds of greetings and kisses from members of the European People's Party and commentaries by Angela Merkel, and we aren't even sure they are real. Or the Democratic Party with the Party of European Socialists. If you're asking us, ask them as well. We can certainly say that we are proud to be considered trustworthy partners of the Russian Federation in Moldova, as long as we opt for deeper integration with Russia and the Customs Union.
