The status of ruling alliances and of the leaders of the component parties is not regulated by law and this generates serious problems in the functioning of the state institutions and their responsibility before society. Such a conclusion is formulated in the IPN analysis “Secretaries general of … the Republic of Moldova or Programmed dualism” that was published on August 6, 2015. The analysis’s author Valeriu Vasilica provides a series of additional arguments in favor of such a thesis and formulates a series of solutions for remedying the situation.
“In a TV program last weekend, the leaders of the AEI assured that they will not interfere in the work of the Government, if only ‘slightly’ , ‘in delicate matters”. The ‘careful’ formulation of the statements shows that the AEI leaders realized, even if partially, the lack of legal reason for the practically unlimited influence they exert on the institutions and government officials in Moldova. However, even these formulations confirm the general perception that the given interference existed and continues to exist and that the high-ranking politicians consider that this is a sacred right of theirs because ‘the people vote parties in elections’,” says the author.
However, the legislation, including the country’s Constitution, clearly provides who exerts the power in the name of the people: the President, Government, Parliament and other central and local public authorities. “It says nothing or almost nothing about parties, party leaders, party alliances, alliance agreements, alliance councils, alliance leaders and other derivative bodies. This means that in the absence of other legal provisions, the leaders and the councils find themselves pushed or ‘self-placed’ in the offshore area of the Moldovan politics, from where they ‘successfully’ manage the affairs in the country, with instruments typical of the offshore area. That’s why the important decisions for the country are taken not by the constitutional bodies, but by the bodies from the offshore area. In practice this means several private individuals with the NGO-like status of party leader or, in the worst variant, one person with or without this NGO-like status. The use of ‘self-placed’ is not accidental here because this time again the leaders of the AEI told us serenely that they agreed that none of them will occupy key state posts,” says the analysis.
The author considers that the renouncing by the leaders of the parties that won the elections of the top state posts or, in particular cases, the ban on holding them is a purely Moldovan invention, which is allegedly very profitable, in this period of transition. In the countries with democratic traditions, including those from the EU, to which we say we are heading, there are no such practices.
Nevertheless, there is a historical analogy. “In the former USSR, the highest post was that of secretary general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, while the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of this Communist Party was the most important collective body. For a long period, the western state leaders could not meet with the Soviet party leaders. That’s why, for external use, there were invented the posts of chairman of the Soviet of the People’s Commissioners, of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, etc. But these remained only fictions because all the decisions were taken at party level, by the secretary general and the Political Bureau. However, those fiction-posts were also held by the top party leader, not by intermediaries. The first and last president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev ruled for a short period and was ousted also because the post was not typical of the party system,” says the author.
According to him, the analogy with the Soviet period is not yet complete and is not in favor of the current supra-body managing Moldova, no matter how strange and macabre such an assessment can sound. “In the Soviet period, everyone knew the secretary general and the other secretaries of the Central Committee and the composition of the Political Bureau. This nominal and hierarchic ‘transparency’ offered inside and outside a certain dose of predictability of the county’s course. Does someone in our country know the real relations between the AEI leaders or inside the AEI? If we know something, these are only rumors disseminated mainly from inside the ruling alliance and these can suggest neither predictability, nor guarantees or remedies for concerns. For example, one of the most spread rumors is that the leaders of the three ruling parties on which the country’s fate and the fate of each of us depends greatly are actually four in number, or they are three, but not those who act officially. Or there is only one person who is not even a top party leader and who even stopped being an MP several days ago. Can someone say how many secretaries general… does Moldova have?” asks the author rhetorically.
It is a worrisome situation because society does not know who and how rules it, the government and the state institutions because not even the party leaders or the Council of the Alliance and its members have a legal status. “They do not have rights and obligations which everyone would know and respect. De facto, the most important decision-making body of the country - the Council of the Alliance – does not have at least a schedule of meetings that the press and society would know or at least a press service or a spokesman that would anyway not tell many things, but would at least keep up some elementary democratic and legal appearances.”
Therefore, there is an acute necessity of creating a legal framework for the AEI and the leaders of the component parties. “Nobody says that the party leaders and alliance councils are something evil. On the contrary, now that the epoch of one ruling party passed, we hope irreversibly, we will continue to have ruling alliances. But this essential modification in the political life must also find refection in the legislation, in the rules of the game in society. We urgently need legislative clarity on a lot of issues, including: who, how and when forms governing coalitions; who and how can negotiate this process; how much information and in what form can be provided to society that has this right in accordance with the Constitution; what is the status of the Alliance, the Council and its members; what is the subsequent relationship of the Alliance and the party leaders with the bodies of the state power; who has and who does not have the right to occupy the key posts in the state and if this thing is decided by the leaders and parties or it is mandatory, for example, for the post of Prime Minister to be occupied by the leader of the party with the highest number of seats in Parliament? There are also other urgent questions that appeared in the difficult and unstable period through which we go, including if the growing instability and worsening difficulties are the result of the aforementioned ambiguities, or if the legal amendments weren’t made consciously or because it was an omission?”- asks the IPN analysis that examines the reasons for the society’s skepticism about the optimistic statements of the high-ranking politicians concerning the solving of the serious internal problems and the resumption of a normal dialogue with the development partners for continuing the country’s European course.
