Considering the protracted negotiations for the formation of a new government coalition and the apparent stalemate hit by the three parties, the possibility of a PDM-PLDM minority government or that of grand coalition involving PCRM is beginning to look more like a probability. In this context, IPN offers a comparative analysis of both options by looking at examples from other countries.
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A hung Parliament
In English, a Parliament in which no party or coalition has an absolute majority is called a hung Parliament, which in Romanian may be translated more spectacularly as a ”hanged Parliament”. The Moldovan Legislative is currently in a situation when from ”hung” it can easily become ”hanged” because of the incapacity of the three pro-European parties to reach an agreement. The impasse reached by the negotiators is all more obvious after the contradictory statements of the PDM and PLDM leaders on one side and PL on the other: if they cannot agree on the current status of the negotiations, what can we expect about the contents of these negotiations?
In this situation, the two rumored solutions are a PDM-PLDM minority government appointed with PCRM's vote or a grand coalition with the participation of PCRM. In both cases, Moldova wouldn't be the first country in such a situation.
Minority government
A minority government is one that lacks the support of a parliamentary majority. In Moldova's case, the rumored option is that of cabinet of PDM and PLDM ministers, voted for by the Communists. It should be noted however that technically speaking this would be a minority coalition. Usually, minority governments occur when there are two big parties and the election results in a hung Parliament or when the initial majority of a party erodes in time.
This is the case of the Conservative government lead by John Major in Great Britain. Although they won the elections in 1992, the Conservatives lost the majority after several defections and by-elections. Even though Major carried out his term in office, at the next elections the Conservatives suffered the heaviest defeat of a ruling party in Britain since 1832.
Canada has a richer experience in this regard: 13 minority cabinets since 1921, including three consecutive ones since 2004. On average, a minority government in Canada lasts one and half years compared to four years for a majority government. The longest term served by a minority cabinet was that of Mackenzie King between 1926 and 1930, while the second longest was that of Stephen Harper – nearly 2 years and 7 months since 2006. The latter cabinet introduced 125 bills and 65 passed. Canadian political pundits think that minority governments are often formed because politicians hope they will be able to convert the minority into a majority in a short time. The best example is that of John Diefenbaker who managed in 1957, after less that year at the helm of a minority government, to obtain the largest electoral victory in Canada's history. However, more recent government have often failed to reproduce such results.
The advantages of minority governments are that they have more internal unity and coherence and, as such, can work faster. In the case of single-party governments, the ruling party often has to make fewer concessions than in a coalition with a junior partner. This advantage would be partially lost in Moldova as the PDM-PLDM government would still be a coalition based on compromises and the recent harmony between the two parties is likely superficial and forced (the mutual sackings that followed by the Padurea Domneasca scandal are still fresh in public memory).
Some political experts say that minority government can be more beneficial for the public interest. The bills proposed by the cabinet aren't voted in batches as it may happen in the case of a majority government. Instead, each bill has to be negotiated with the parliamentary groups in order to garner the necessary support. Moreover, the government can look for support for different bills from different parties. Thus, in Moldova, a bill may be passed with the votes of PL-PDM-PLDM and another one with the votes of PDM-PLDM-PCRM.
This can also be a disadvantage: if the government cannot find enough support in the Parliament, it can't promote any bill. A good example is that of the Canadian government of 1979 lead by Joe Clark for 9 months, when the legislative passed only 7 of the 38 bills proposed by the executive. For Moldova, such a situation would be nothing short of catastrophic given the necessity to implement the EU Association Agreement, which require the passing and modification of numerous laws and regulations.
Of course, another vulnerability is that minority governments can easily fall because of no confidence votes. In Westminster system countries, such risks are prevented through confidence and supply agreements in which a party agrees to support the minority government in case of confidence and appropriation votes and, in return, the government commits to promotes some of the party's policies. There is even a distinction between office-seeking and policy-seeking parties. In Moldova, a PDM-PLDM government ”guaranteed” by PCRM would be invulnerable to no confidence votes initiated by PL and/or PSRM.
However, this type of agreement is more typical of advanced democracies with a specific parliamentary tradition, such as the Commonwealth countries. The Moldovan politicians' often childish behavior and the influence of “mood” on crucial decisions make such agreement unlikely to work (although not impossible). Minority government in general have a short lifespan: sometimes they fall or resign because of lack of parliamentary support, other times they are seen by the politicians themselves as only temporary solutions before winning a majority at the next elections or, on the contrary, a means to avoid early elections. The latter may apply for Moldova as well: it's likely that PL, PLDM, PDM and PCRM all would prefer to avoid early elections in order to prevent the further growth of PSRM.
Grand coalitions and historical compromises
Another option that seems popular among analysts, although it's debatable whether voters would agree, is that of a grand coalition. Technically speaking, the notion refers to a coalition between the parties with the most votes, even though one has enough votes to govern alone or to form a coalition with a smaller party. The advantage of such a coalition is its high representativeness: in Moldova, PL-PLDM-PDM obtained only 46% of votes and wouldn't be a very representative coalition. A grand coalition that would represent over two thirds of the population would theoretically have more stability, confidence and legitimacy in promoting policies, as well as more diverse and richer human resources for filling offices.
The success story of grand coalitions if the Große Koalition between Germany's Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, first formed in 2005. Back then, it was possible to form a coalition on the left, but disagreements with the Left Party lead to the formation of a coalition between the two largest parties. It worked so well that the coalition is on even today, surviving two elections while Angela Merkel continues to be one of the world's most influential leaders and perhaps the most influential national leader within the EU.
Historically speaking, grand coalitions have been formed in the United Kingdom during times of crisis that required national unity. Among the most relevant examples are the grand coalitions during both World Wars.
Perhaps even more relevant for Moldova is Compromesso Storico – the historical compromise during the 70s between Italy's Christian Democrats and Communists. The latter were lead by Enrico Berlinguer, who disagreed with Moscow's official position and contributed to the formation of Eurocommunism. The Historical Compromise was seen as a solution to offer Italy some political stability during an economic crisis and at a time when terrorist groups threatened to carry out a coup d'etat. The similarities to Moldova's situation are striking: (1) the Moldovan economy is transforming itself and is affected directly by Russian sanctions and indirectly by the crisis in Russia, (2) the coup d'etat or the hijacking of elections have been controversial topics during the electoral campaign, fueled by the searches and arrests operated by the Security and Intelligence Service and (3) Moldova's grand coalition would also include moderate Communists that have become relatively pro-European.
Another function of grand coalitions is that of a cordon sanitaire meant to prevent far-left or far-right parties from acceding to power. The notion was coined in Belgium to describe the exclusion from government coalitions of the far-right party Vlaams Blok. In the Czech Republic, the Communist Party is also kept out from government through such a cordon sanitaire. Le Pen's National Front in France often finds itself in a similar situation. Moldova has its own radical party – the Socialists stood out in the electoral campaign through their radical and aggressive position and have been criticized by both former members such as Valentin Crilov and political opponents such as Vlad Filat for representing the interests of another country. Given the Socialists radical far-left stance and the high number of seats, it's likely that the other four parliamentary parties may form such a cordon sanitaire against PSRM.
Quo vadis?
The finalization of negotiations is likely near. Their duration isn't worrying in itself – according to a 1995 study, the average duration of negotiations on government formation in European countries was 39 days. What is worrying is that these talks have been kept secret and now we have statements about “stalemates” and”regrets that we didn't negotiate with the Communists earlier”. Even if we fit within reasonable distance of the 39-day average, it's unlikely that after 6 weeks in a European country the people wouldn't know at least the format of coalition. For Moldova, the preferred version of many analysts is the restoration of the Alliance for European Integration (PL-PLDM-PDM) with the partial participation of the Communists. The recent statements however have fueled rumors about scenarios without the participation of the Liberals, which leaves two options – a minority government and a grand coalition with the Communists. The first option is probably too risky and totally inadequate given Moldova's short and medium term necessities, especially considering the implementation of the EU Association Agreement. The second option looks better, but PLDM, which is already on a downward trajectory, risks losing even more voters if it allies with PCRM. The same is true for PCRM. Such a coalitions should produce really good results to convince the voters that it was worth to break the ideological boundaries.
Eugen Muravschi, IPN
