The election campaign that preceded the presidential elections in Moldova was a dirty one and included medieval techniques. Regardless of the election outcome, the people are those who will suffer the consequences of their vote during the next four years, said participants in the public debate “Electoral technologies and electoral technologists: lessons learned and lessons to be learned from the campaign prior to presidential elections” staged by IPN News Agency.
Head of the Election Observation Mission of “Promo-LEX” Association Pavel Postica said the people witnessed an unprecedented election campaign in the 25 years of the declaration of independence. “It was evident that only one will emerge victorious. We haven’t seen such campaigns during 20 years. We got used to the idea that a seat of councilor or of MP can be lost, but it is hard to understand that a very important position can be fully lost. It was that pepper that gave color and put the election runners in the situation to do everything possible to win this campaign. We, the people, and the contenders must admit that the ‘digestion’ period of this campaign is of four years. Like it or not, we will have to ‘consume’ the product of this campaign in the period,” stated Pavel Postica.
Member of the electoral staff of PAS candidate for President Maia Sandu Vladimir Bolea, deputy head of the PAS Chisinau municipal organization, said the Party “Action and Solidarity” can go down in history for the election campaign that it organized at the lowest cost. The campaign prior to the presidential elections was unprecedented and with medieval elements, especially as regards the involvement of church officials, who campaigned for Igor Dodon.
“Even if the Orthodox Church during the 25 years campaigned either for the Socialists or for the Communists, making different statements and conducting a very dirty and shameful campaign, with a lot of lies, the goal of the technologies applied by our staff was primarily achieved, even if we lost time by refuting the impudent lies about Syrians and homosexuals,” stated Vladimir Bolea.
Standing expert of IPN’s project Igor Botan said the Church is the keeper of traditions and for a category of people, possibly the largest one, it is the last refuge and the last hope in another life. But when the Church is involved in political games, given its status and role, this thing become dangerous for society too. The priests who spoke in the name of the Church could provide examples to highlight the role of the woman, but did the opposite in order to favor an electoral competitor.
Socialist MP Grigore Novac, member of the electoral staff of the Party of Socialists’ candidate Igor Dodon, said the election campaign was harsh. “I cannot remember a hasher and dirtier campaign. Our opponents used scarecrows. I already said that every time we come closer to elections, we hear rumors about different terrorists. The people are held in a vicious circle and are not allowed to make things clear for them. They replace one myth with another. It is regrettable that not the merits are brought into focus, while the voters are divided into pro-West and pro-East. It is a technology that we witnessed after 2009 and this is used not only in our country,” he stated.
Grigore Novac added that unfortunately, the political class didn’t grow enough to conduct a civilized election campaign. When one of the sides is attacked, the other side defends itself based on the principle of self-defense.
The public debate “Electoral technologies and electoral technologists: lessons learned and lessons to be learned from the campaign prior to presidential elections” is the 66th of the series of debates “Developing political culture by public debates” that are held by IPN in partnership with Radio Moldova and with support from the German foundation “Hanns Seidel”.
