Average Chisinau Resident in front of electoral lists. Info-Prim Neo analysis, Part V

Though faced with new and new everyday worries, “the average Chisinau resident” decides to spare some time on Saturday and examine the next electoral lists. He starts to be tired of his electoral preoccupations already. Yet, he wants to make a conscious decision on June 3 so he will make efforts and study the lists, which, at the moment, are the only source of accessible information in a more or less concentrated form. For its part, Info-Prim Neo will continue to follow the line of thought of the average voter, who represents a rather numerous category of electors that manifest a certain interest in elections, possess a certain volume of relevant information, but do not have time and possibility of making additional checks and looking for explanations. ... He notices immediately that the next three parties have the word “liberal” in their names. “Placing them close to each other in the ballot papers is the greatest harm that someone could cause to them, he thinks, because they will compete with each other first and then with the whole list.” He recalls that he heard about the unification of the Liberals, but he remembers he got bored at a certain moment and stopped wondering how the story will end. [“Three Men in a Boat”: Liberal Party, “Man” No. 8 in the ballot paper] In comparison with the other two parties, the Liberal Party (PL) can boast about some victories in the Chisinau elections. Its candidate No.2, who, respectively, is not No.1 in the list of 2007, was for many times in competition with the candidates of the ruling party for the post of mayor general. He had even the role of representative figure for almost all the Opposition forces. But he did not win and his own party could be one of the obstacles as it has a not so favourable reputation. Now the list should be examined from the angle of the recent scandal caused by the statements of a group of young party members regarding “the dictatorial method used by the party’s management” and by the departure of about 70 members of the young wing from the party. They also invoked “the nepotism promoted within the party”, making allusion to the candidates No.1 and No.2 of the present list. If the scandal was inspired by somebody, that somebody found very “inspiringly” the moment. Now there is not time to deny the rumours. Though, it was announced that the Liberal Party will hold a press conference on Monday, May 28, on that occasion… Next to the first two candidates, there are several names that would tell something to the “average Chisinau resident”: No.3, No.9, No.11, maybe No.14... No.3 is more or less known, also because there is information about his present occupation. There is no such information about the other candidates and the Chisinau resident finds them virtual, not real. If speaking about the young members of the PL: of the first 30 candidates, about 10 can be considered young, if the young age is extended to 37 years. A plus of the PL list is the fact that one third of the candidates represent the suburbs of the capital. All the people know that this category of voters had their say in the previous elections. [Second “Man in the Boat”: Social Liberal Party”] The Social Liberal Party (PSL) has regained its optimistic mood lost two years ago, when engaged in an active and modern election campaign. To date, this is the only party that managed to call down, by means of the Central Election Commission, someone as important as the Speaker of Parliament, who was warned over cases of campaigning for the ruling party. These are the impressions of the “average Chisinau voter”, but it is not known if the whole electorate thinks in the same way. Looking from this viewpoint, the present elections have a double importance for the party. However, the commendation refers mostly to the promotion of the candidate No. 2 in the list, who is a candidate for mayor general and whose campaign somewhat overshadows the list of municipal councillors. The form in which the list is drawn up is a failure, our voter considers. He knows only the first 4-5 names of the total of 48. But there is not sufficient information even about these 5, to say nothing of all of the candidates. How can you convince the voter to choose you, if you only say that the competitors are: “historian, economist”, “economist-manager”, ”economist”, “historian”, “physician”, again “historian” and again “historian”, in the same way until 48. For sure they were forced to run in elections, thinks “the average Chisinau resident” with irony. Through lack of other information, he looks at the date of birth of the candidates. From number 1 to 30, only 6-7 are aged under 37. “And they say that their young team is their strong point”... [Third “Man in the Boat”: National Liberal Party] The list of candidates for municipal councillor on behalf of the National Liberal Party (PNL) has more information available than the previous two ones. Candidate no.1 had this position in the previous Council. He has been the first and only unaffiliated candidate to overcome the electoral threshold in at least the past decade. Although he had a dynamic activity in the Council, he himself apparently learned that in a deliberative body the term “independent” means, for the most part, that nothing depends on such a person. Most of the candidates that head the list are “managers” or have comparable positions, which presupposes human and financial resources. No.2, 6, 14 and 20 are well-known names indeed, but they have been also known in association with the lists of some other parties, and now it all depends on the voter whether he will appreciate this or not. The leader of the party is not included in the list, yet his/her influence is sensed, including for the reason that at lest 10 of the candidates are journalists or philologists. On the whole, looking through the viewpoint of grounding and occupation, the average voter sees PNL’s list fairly balanced, although he hasn’t decided yet whether this will be the decisive factor to rely on in the June 3 elections. Before putting aside the May 18 issue of the “Capitala” newspaper, which published all the lists of candidates, he notices among other things that 8 candidates of the top-30 in PNL’s list are aged under 37. The "average voter" will examine the following lists the next time, thinking that he should also spare some time to review the impressions that he has collected so far and which have been noted with sufficient accuracy by Info-Prim Neo News Agency. [The previous parts of the analysis “Average Chisinau Resident in front of electoral lists” are available in the archives of Info-Prim Neo’s website www.info-prim.md]