The curt adoption of the mixed electoral system in 2017 torpedoed Moldova’s relations with its western partners, and in terms of gravity this can be compared to the toleration of the banking fraud that caused the 2015 disaster; consequently, the Moldova-EU dialogue has been discontinuous and lacked progress in 2017. This and other conclusions are found in IDIS Viitorul’s “Economic Outlook: 2018 – A Year of Reform or Stagnation?”, presented today.
IDIS Viitorul director Igor Munteanu said that in 2017 the Democratic Party imposed the adoption of a new electoral system, expecting an anemic reaction from the EU, and acting as the “good cop” in contrast to the Socialists as the “bad cop”, which however doesn’t preclude them from cooperating whenever they want.
Igor Munteanu says that the international press, too, has noted a rapid decline of Moldova towards a model dominated by an oligarchic group. The EU authorities have some serious objections to this model of government and warn about the risk of certain groups of citizens being discriminated—the Moldovan diaspora, people without a formal place of residence, women—within the mixed voting system, and about the risk that super-rich local barons would be recruited, which in combination could bring down the concept of free and democratic elections.
Igor Munteanu added that the new electoral system would attract a more reticent approach from the EU and also stronger monitoring as to the functioning of the rule of law. The sovereignty argument invoked in an electoral context is feeble, and the popular support for the mixed system is not validated by any credible survey, says Munteanu.
Moldova will not be able to unfreeze the financial assistance promised by the EU without offering satisfactory answers about the progress of the stagnated reforms: the banking system, anticorruption and justice, the energy sector, and the rule of law. As concerns 2018, politics will continue to prevail over economic issues, thinks Igor Munteanu, and political decisions usually affect economy.
