The National Unity Party (PUN) is against the mixed-member system because this is against unionists, who are not situated compactly on the country’s territory and the proportional representation system was much more advantageous. At the same time, the unionist movement started to be ultimately taken seriously. Two years ago, the unionist course was ignored against the other two options: integration into the European Union and integration into the Eurasian Union, first deputy head of the PUM Ana Gutu stated in the public debate “Starting positions of political parties and potential independent candidates on unionist platform before an electoral year”, which was the 82nd installment of the series “Developing political culture by public debates”, staged by IPN News Agency.
“It is important for the future Parliament to include a comfortable group of unionists who would govern within a possible ruling alliance,” noted Ana Gutu. According to her, the results of the 2018 elections for unionists depend a lot on the citizens who will give their vote of confidence to a unionist party or the unionist candidate in a constituency. However, given that the mentality is profoundly patriarchal, the electoral options of the people will not change because the citizens want first of all a powerful leader.
“Regardless of the voting system, the citizens in the Republic of Moldova believe in powerful and credible leaders. On the other hand, these leaders will go to vote in their communities and those who have more money will take sacks of money to their gates and the people will vote for the parties that these leaders represent. The independent candidates will be disadvantaged thus as the citizens will be lured by the power of a candidate or party. Regrettably, the PDM and PSRM can do this owing to the administrative resources they possess and will exploit widely,” stated Ana Gutu.
The politician noted that the PUN leaders are for having a dialogue in the pre-electoral and post-electoral periods on the constitution of future alliances in constituencies. “I personally do not believe in a post-electoral alliance between unionist parties. I believe in an agreement between these parties to identity by a candidate in the 51 constituencies on behalf of one party and another. I don’t think the process of reaching an agreement between unionist parties and NGOs will be an easy one. In last year’s presidential elections we were ridiculed from all parts,” stated Ana Gutu.
She noted it will be very hard for all the unionist and pro-European parties to reach a pre-electoral agreement because some of the ostensibly pro-European parties are suspected of being controlled by Russia. “I would like efficient communication to exist between the unionist NGOs and political entities as the lists will include their candidates too and there are leaders of unionist NGOs who do not want to join a political party,” stated Ana Gutu.
The public debate “Starting position of political parties and potential independent candidates on unionist platform before an electoral year” is the 82nd installment of the series of debates “Developing political culture by public debates” that are organized with support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.
The next debate entitled “Starting position of political parties and potential independent candidates before an electoral year” will take place in the conference hall of IPN News Agency on November 27, starting at 2pm. This will involve representatives of the Eurasian dimension of the political landscape.
