How many future mayors will go to Brussels? Info-Prim Neo analysis

It is expected that after the Communist Party's candidate for mayor of Chisinau Igor Dodon paid a visit to Brussels, other candidates will take febrile steps to repeat the same move. Some of them can even succeeded, though it is not clear if it's worth it. Igor Dodon's visit to Brussels, especially the meetings at the head office of the European Commission, is spectacular as form, but does not have much content. It is spectacular because it was accepted at the request of a simple member of Parliament of a more than simple country, Moldova, in relation to the EU. Afterward, it turned out that he was one of the 14 candidates for mayor of the capital city of this 'more than simple' country. The visit is not very consistent as important decisions are not usually taken during such visits. Representatives of Moldova with higher political status and political prerogatives incomparable with Dodon's made much more trips to Brussels... The consistency of the visits is measured in changes to the better that take place or not in Moldova after them. The solutions that Igor Dodon said he obtained during meetings with the Prime Minister of Belgium and mayors of a number of important cities can be studied even better from the home computer or from the computers of qualified experts who work for a candidate for the mayoralty. Indisputably, this visit has a national electoral importance and other candidates will try to reduce the handicap on the last 100 meters of the election campaign with great stakes {eventually for the next election campaign}. It is not excluded that such visits will take place even if not much time remained until the elections and the schedule of the high-ranking European officials is agreed many months beforehand, by bureaucratic and very complicated procedures. Brussels satisfied much greater wishes of the current Moldovan authorities. The Liberal Party's candidate Dorin Chirtoaca, the current mayor of Chisinau, can be the first applicant. Chirtoaca may ask for recommendations from the EU Delegation to Moldova and the President of Romania Traian Basecsu. For clear reasons, he cannot seek help from Vlad Filat, who has closer relations with Brussels, from Marian Lupu, who has certain ties, or from Mihai Ghimpu, who does not have special relations with the EU and, seemingly, with nobody from outside Moldova after his double term in office as President-Speaker. Therefore, Dorin Chirtoaca can succeed in going to Brussels, but he will be the second after Igor Dodon and it is probably not worth it. Dorin Chirtoaca may also pay a visit to the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, where he probably himself has enough relations. A similar scenario for the visit to Brussels, with the same result, can be described for Valentina Buliga, who is a candidate for mayor of the Democratic Party. The only difference is that this favor for her can be obtained by Speaker and Acting President Marian Lupu, who heads the Democratic Party. The list of applicants may be extended, but not very much. All of them will first apply to the EU Delegation to Moldova for recommendations, if they have not done it yet, as there is not much time left. By his visit to Brussels, Igor Dodon did a favor not to himself, but to the Democratic candidates. This is the national electoral importance of this visit. Most of the supporters of Dodon, who are also the supporters of the Communist Party, are not the best supporters of the European organizations. He may even lose a part of the traditional votes of the supporters of the Communists. He also did not attract votes from the reliable supporters of the parties that formed the Alliance for European Integration because a single gesture does not change the people's conviction. But such a gesture can influence the undecided voters or the voters with pro-European views, who are disappointed by the performance of the ruling parties. A sentence spread by the electoral staff of Igor Dodon, which remained outside the attention of the press and analysts, has a great importance in this respect. This sentence is 'accompanied by Dirk Schuebel, the Head of the EU Delegation to Moldova'. This sentence was designed to suggest that the EU attaches separate importance to this visit and gives a privilege to one of the 14 candidates. There are three possible explanations for this sentence: 1. It is more a wish suggested by the political technologists of the Communist Party than a reality also because only a high-ranking official can be accompanied by persons with a lower rank, according to the protocol; 2. The EU felt post-factum the delicacy of the situation when it gives this privilege to one of the candidates, even if the meetings were agreed long beforehand, when it was not known that Igor Dodon will be the Communist Party's candidate for mayor. The Europeans are educated and could not reject the visit after they found out the new circumstances. Dirk Schuebel may have flied together with Igor Dodon also because he wanted to make sure that the Delegation's reputation will not be exposed to risks in Brussels; 3. It is a warning signal for the ruling alliance: “If things go wrong, the EU can work with somebody else in Moldova...”. Anyway, the visit of a candidate to the institutions of the local administration of Brussels and the subsequent moves around it point again to the wish to use significant resources, in particular with or without the approval of Moldova's international partners, in an election campaign with stakes that are much greater than in the local elections. [Valeriu Vasilica, Info-Prim Neo]