None of the three big Moldovan political players, the Socialist Party, the ACUM bloc and the Democratic Party, won the local elections of October 20. After the first round, the data shows that all three registered worse results than expected. The political commentator Victor Ciobanu expressed this opinion at the TV8 show "Politica Nataliei Morari".
According to him, the Socialists have secured fewer votes than expected, they did not win seats in big city halls and got much worse results than expected even in the southern part of the country. The ACUM bloc has obtained an insufficient political vote for a government that promotes itself as the driving force for change. Additionally, it had poor results beyond Chișinău. Although the PDM won most mayorships, these are small village offices.
Political commentator Victor Stepaniuc said that all opposition parties, with the exception of the Democratic Party, have improved their score in the Sunday local elections, which shows that the government must be more effective. "At the next stage, these parties, either in their current configuration or through cohesion, will cause problems to the governing alliance groups, both on the left side and on the right side of the political spectrum. Due to this context, we cannot speak in terms of decisive victors or losers", said Stepaniuc.
In his opinion, one of the shortcomings of the electoral process is that the exact number of voters is currently unknown. The second shortcoming, according to Stepaniuc, is the financing of election campaigns, which "is not transparent". "We can't say for sure how much money has any of the political parties spent. The relevant bodies should look into this issue", the commentator added.
The Institute for Strategic Initiatives chairman, Andrei Popov, said that this local election was conducted better, while the use of administrative resources wasn't as significant as it was before. However, the IIS chair had three contention points regarding how the elections were carried out: the lack of transparency of expenses, unequal media coverage and the refusal to register the independent candidate Ruslan Codreanu into the electoral race.
According to Andrei Popov, the political vote granted to the district councils shows that the biggest winner of this election is the ACUM bloc, followed by the PSRM, while the PDM suffered the biggest defeat. At the same time, the Political Party "Partidul Nostru" and the Political Party "Șor" have obtained "unexpected" results.
