AEI has died ‘a good death’. Long live A! Info-Prim Neo analysis, part III

The first part of this analysis published on August 3, 2010, {(see “AEI has died ‘a good death’. Long live A! Info-Prim Neo analysis, part I” here) suggested that the term in office of the Alliance for European Integration (AEI) had ended objectively {de facto}, urged its leaders to make the date of the Alliance’s dismemberment public, for everyone’s sake, and studied the work of the AEI, especially because Moldova in the future will be governed exclusively by coalitions. Therefore, we analyzed a part of the risks and dangers experienced by the AEI and its capacity to deal with them. Part II, published on August 5, 2010, {(see “AEI has died ‘a good death’. Long live A! Info-Prim Neo analysis, part II” here)} focused on the sources used by the governing alliance to strengthen itself during a year. Part III will center on possible scenarios of behavior of the AEI in the future referendum, early legislative elections and presidential elections. This aspect is of interest because we will thus be able to assess the quality of the future governments and, respectively, the quality of our life. [“Tertium non datur”] After the early legislative elections set to take place on November 14, Moldova will be again governed by a coalition of political parties. It will be either a center-right or a center-left coalition and in this respect – {tertium non datur}, a third variant is not possible. This is because society remains in continuation the social base of the political sector in general and every party in particular. The society’s structure during a year hasn’t changed significantly. The member parties of the AEI a year ago obtained those votes not because they had beautiful or less beautiful eyes, but because their ideas are represented in society to this extent and these parties represent the ideas of the respective groups of people. There are no reasons to believe that a party or another will become stronger overnight and poll much more votes than before, not speaking about a majority of votes in Parliament, as the Communists Party had during two terms in a row. The PCRM maintained the power solitarily because it took over and governed the poorest country in Europe. This means that it was chosen by the largest social category that existed then – the poor. As the PCRM claims that it governed the country well, it did it to its own detriment as the number of poor people should have decreased, while that of other people who do not usually vote for the Communists should have increased. This is true if we do not take into account the role of the Moldovan economic migrants, who contributed to the relative improvement of the economic situation in Moldova. Anyway, the society’s structure is now more fragmented than ten or five years ago, but is similar to that of last year. The AEI only plans to create the “middle class for every village”, but this is an objective that can be achieved over many years. Thus, it is logical to believe that more than one party will enter Parliament. Besides, the election threshold was reduced. It is not excluded that there will be more parties than at present and they will be obliged to form coalitions if they do not want to plunge the country into new early elections. Only two possible scenarios derive from this hypothesis: 1) the alliances will be formed after the elections and according to their results; 2) this process will be controlled from the moment the election campaigns start or even earlier. Conventionally, we can name them “the nice scenario” and “the useful scenario”. [“The nice scenario”] All the components of the AEI will take part in the early legislative and presidential elections separately, with their own candidates and platforms and without common electoral staffs, the election campaign will represent a competition involving the best of the best. The candidates’ right to own image and the voters’ right to own choice will be respected. The most powerful and most convincing will win most of the votes. The government coalition will be created only after that, in a democratic, simple and nice, but not useful way. [“The useful scenario”] The member parties of the AEI will run in elections with distributed posts and negotiated candidates for the most important posts, with an agreed message and, eventually, with a coordination staff, with mutual obligations and responsibilities during and after the campaign. It is a complicated, partially restrictive (non-democratic), and not so nice scenario, but it is rather useful for the final goal. [“Nice”? “Useful”? “Dangerous”?] The first scenario has been lately promoted by the PLDM, while the second seems to be liked to a certain extent by the other three AEI member parties. The “nice” scenario is not useful for a possible center-right alliance consisting of some or all the components of the current AEI and, respectively, for the chance to achieve the goal pursued by the AEI during the last year – to implement the European standards in Moldova at social, political and economic levels. This objective was backed by most of the voters in July 2009 and then by Moldova’s international partners as well. If those who enter the Parliament in November do not have enough votes to form a government coalition, the entry into the legislative body will mean only a peaceful life during four years, with the mandate of the Opposition in the pocket. From the AEI’s perspective, in the best case the country will not advance or will advance slower under a center-left coalition controlled by the PCRM, whose potential is already known and checked. Instead, many things in the relations between the Parliament, the Presidential Office and the Government will be disturbed. According to the “nice” scenario, which envisions the cooling of tempers inside the AEI during the election campaign, the relations will be very tense even if the parties that formed the alliance obtain the post of President and a parliamentary majority. The head of state, who will be elected in conditions of rivalry, will anyway not have the Parliament’s full support. Therefore, the President will not regard the parliamentary coalition as a partner. The misunderstandings will derive from the method of forming the Government, which is to be approved by the parliamentary coalition. The legislation on the President’s prerogatives in the new conditions of electing the head of state will be amended. The President could even represent another political party than those that will form part of the future government coalition. Certain dangers will appear if the future center-right coalition in the future Parliament will change its configuration. Given that most of the center-right parties so far polled in elections plus-minus 1-2% of the vote, nobody can guarantee that the party of “the bearded man” and “the man with two lungs” will not be accepted in the future coalition. Can the leaders of the current government coalition imagine this process and its denouement? The relations inside the AEI have worsened significantly. The PLDM announced that it will field its own candidate for the presidency, angering the PDM, which expects that the AEI will support its leader Marian Lupu for this post. The PLDM proposes shortening the election campaign from two months to a month and this initiative is to the detriment of the other coalition partners that need more time than the Premier’s party to gather support from the voters. Formally speaking, the leader of the PLDM Vlad Filat is right when he says that the AEI no more has obligations towards its members as the earlier reached agreements regulated the relations inside it according to the results of the previous elections. New elections are now coming and the earlier accords are not valid anymore. This is why we say that the AEI had died ‘a good death’ because it fulfilled its duty – to manage the results of the July 29, 2009 elections. The escalation of rivalries inside the AEI could have immediate destructive effects, until the elections. This will happen if a small group of MPs from the government coalition withdraw their vote of trust to the Filat Cabinet. It can also happen that several parties will resort to such a move. [Possible solutions] One of the solutions is to maintain the AEI functional in the future election campaign, with common rules of the game, rewritten and adjusted to the new conditions. The idea should be at least tested in the process of holding the September 5 constitutional referendum so that the opponents of the coalition and its supporters are able to gather arguments. In the trial period, the coalition can establish cooperation relations with other parties from the same political segment so as to make sure that it holds a comfortable majority in the future Parliament not only by the number of seats. A larger coalition that will hold more seats than the necessary minimum would prevent the large parties from imposing conditions and the small ones from blackmailing. The second solution... [Valeriu Vasilica, Info-Prim Neo] [P.S.] The given analysis did not study the experience of the center-left government coalition because there was no such experience. The scenarios of behavior in the future election campaign of the components of a possible coalition could be the topic of another analysis. Certainly, in order not to commit the same mistake, the PCRM will make sure beforehand, not after the elections, that it will have were to take the number of seats needed to return to power from... and “If I get up...” ({(See “Instinct of self-preservation expressed differently by Moldovan political leaders. Info-Prim Neo analysis” here}). [V.V., IPN]