Most of the election runners entered the campaign preceding the November 30 parliamentary elections with electoral TV videos, posters, slogans and advertisements. By definition, the publicity is biased, but in the election campaign it represents the type of information that the voters accept most often. That’s why IPN decided to launch a series of analyses entitled “Electoral publicity interpreted honestly” by which to contribute to developing the political culture, analyzing neutrally the subtleties of the electoral advertisements. The election runners are analyzed in accordance with their position in ballots.
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This article centers on the election campaign of the Party “Renastere” (“Renaissance”) (PR) and of the Communist Reformist Party (PCR). The PCR wasn’t analyzed according to its position in the ballot owing to the unclear situation as regards its registration as election runner. As it will most probably remain in the ballot, we will analyze it alongside the PR because the campaigns of both of the parties are small in size compared with the campaigns of the other election runners. They do not have video clips and bank on posters, advertisements and meetings with voters.
‘Renaissance’ of veterans
The Party “Renastere” is one of the parties that form the so-called ‘left alternative’. It tries to exploit the decline in the leviathan of the Party of Communists (PCRM) and to attract the left-wing voters who became free from the monopoly of Vladimir Voronin. This goal is a rather rational one and is based on realistic preconditions. The problem is that these people – the ex-supporters of the PCRM - must be attracted by something that the PCRM didn’t have. But “Renastere” offers nothing new. On the contrary, it is headed by former Communist MP Vadim Misin and former Premier during the Communist government Vasile Tarlev. This is a rather famous duo, which lacks yet attractiveness. In fact, the famousness of the leaders is namely the thing on which “Renastere” counts. But Vasile Tarlev already showed his inability to mobilize the voters around him when he led the Centrist Union in the previous elections. Regardless of his competence, Tarlev does not have the energy, charisma, leadership abilities and other qualities needed to manage a party. Polls show that many people do not vote for a party even if they have a good opinion about it. This refers to the political leaders as well.
Vadim Misin was one of the leaders of the PCRM, a veteran of the party and an ardent promoter of the Moldovan statehood and identity. But he self-sabotages his speech by not speaking Romanian or Moldovan, as he prefers to name the language. Voronin, Dodon and Usatyi speak both Russian and Romanian, while for Misin this is a considerable handicap. As Tarlev, Misin is unable to exploit his famousness as a leader. They are both figures who already have a political past of which they cannot get rid: they played secondary roles and cannot inspire and mobilize. Their names could have had more weight if they had associated themselves with a real leader.
The poster of the PR shows lack of force and creativity and this is what characterizes this political project in general. It is a white poster with the party’s emblem in the middle and with Tarlev and Misin on the sides. The emblem represents a red square with Moldova’s white map inside. It is an attempt to exploit the voters’ patriotism and to suggest that the party is dedicated to the country: it does not promote an own symbol and a party ideology, but promotes the country - Moldova. At the same time, such an emblem can suggest lack of the party’s own identity to the voter. The slogan practically reiterates the party’s name “Let’s revive Moldova together!”. The problem of this slogan, and of the party in general, is that renaissance or revival imply novelty, change and vitality, but this slogan is promoted through two veterans. Tarlev and Misin promise nothing new. They actually pledge to continue the government principles and ideology of 2001-2009. Misin himself explained that he left the PCRM because of the misunderstandings with Vladimir Voronin, who apparently wasn’t sufficiently devoted to the Communist ideals.
Imitation of ‘reformists’
If the Party “Renastere” is headed by former veterans of the Communist government, the PCR is a left party of young people who had been members or sympathizers of the PCRM. Ruslan Popa is not as known as Misin or Tarlev. He is younger and wasn’t a leading representative of the Communist government, but he offsets the lack of famousness by novelty. His intention was probably to become the face of the young Communists, of the new wave that would replace the defeated and exhausted veterans.
But this party’s campaign is disappointing. The first step was to imitate the Liberal Reformists: the defection of the Communist Reformists from the PCRM reflected the defection of the Liberal Reformists from the Liberal Party, fuelling even more the idea that the Liberals and Communists are two extremes that resemble each other. The second step was the attempt to clone the PCRM’s symbols. The symbol of the Communist Reformists is almost identical. Only the sickle is replaced with an ear that looks like the sickle actually. On the upper left side there is even a small star, instead of the PCRM’s book, which makes the party look even more Soviet-like. The cloning didn’t stop here. The Reformists wanted to have the same abbreviation as their former party: the Party of Communist Reformists of Moldova = the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova. Even if the motivation of such a decision is clear – to attract the votes of those who vote for the PCRM and the hammer and sickle – it is not an honest tactic and such a tactic deserves to be discouraged. Thus, the Central Election Commission decided that at least the abbreviation should be different – PCR instead of PCRM. But it should have also demanded replacing the emblem. This way the trials in which the Communist Reformists are now involved would have been avoided and this uncertainty as to the PCR’s participation in the elections wouldn’t have existed. However, the Reformists were lucky in the draw and are thus much higher in the ballot than Voronin’s Communists and it’s not excluded that they will get votes from the persons who will vote for the first Communist party with a sickle (even if it’s an ear) and hammer in the ballot.
The PCR’s slogan is not original either: “Against all those who were in power”. This is a radical and non-discriminatory position that can yet attract voters given the scandals that involved the parties of the current government coalition and the decreasing rating of the PCRM that headed the previous government. The people do not have much trust in the politicians and parties. Many people are undecided and consider that they do not have who to vote for. This is a real niche, but the PCR is making effort to capitalize on the negative attitude towards the parties that were in power, trying to clone a party that ruled the county. This message is somehow lost in similar messages: the People’s Party wants to ‘beat’ everyone; independent candidate Oleg Brega is also against everyone; the Liberal Reformist Party struggles against the oligarchs; the PCRM attacks both the right and the left in its video clips, etc. There are too many election runners that are against some or everyone.
Young members of the left
The biggest problem of the parties of the political left, such as the PCR and “Renastere”, is yet the fact that the voters who freed themselves from the hegemony of the PCRM were swiftly attracted by Renato Usatyi and Igor Dodon. The parties of these two have real chances to enter Parliament and have what the other election runners of the left are missing: leaders, identity, resources and the support of the Kremlin. The support of Moscow is also a sign that namely these two politicians were identified by Russia as the most competent and capable of conquering the electoral segment that detached itself from the PCRM and of becoming the new Moldovan political left.
Note: This analysis refers strictly to the publicity of the election runners and does not aim to assess their quality. The bad products can have good publicity and vice versa, as the good products can have good publicity. Earlier, IPN made an analisys of the electoral publicity of the Democratic Party, which was published on November 6, of the Christian Democratic People’s Party, which was published on November 7, of the Liberal Democratic Party, which was published on November 10, of the Liberal Reformist Party, which was published on November 11, of the People’s Force Party, which was published on November 12, and of the People’s Movement “Antimafie”, which was published on November 13. and of the National Liberal Party, which was published on November 17, and of the Party of Socialists, which was published on November 18, and of the People’s Party, which was published on November 19, and of the Communist Party, which was published on Noevmebr 21, and of the Liberal Party, which was published on November 22.
Eugen Muravschi, IPN
