Parliament … is dead! Long live the Parliament! Info-Prim Neo analysis, part III

Info-Prim Neo Agency continues the series of analysis of the performance of the Moldovan Parliament of the sixteenth legislature. The March 9 part focused on the distinctive features of the Parliament in general, while the March 10 part – on the groups of the majority coalition - the Communist Party (PCRM) and the Christian-Democratic People’s Party (PPCD). This part features the Opposition represented by the parliamentary groups of the Moldova Noastra Alliance and the Democratic Party as well as MPs nonaffiliated to groups, but representing other political parties that generally appeared from the remains of the former Moldova Democrata Block (BMD). This retrospective analysis could help the voters select the best election contender that they would like to see in the new Parliament as their representative, but might also offer the possibility of forming a general opinion about the configuration of the next Legislature. In particular, it could help the voters decide whether they want or not that the model of the 2005-2009 Parliament is reedited or modified and how. [Parliamentary Opposition: difficult deliveries] The majority groups kept the Parliament under control not only due to the internal discipline and the common interests of the parties and their leaders featured in the previous parts, but also due to the precarious situation in the camp of the Opposition. The April 4, 2005 vote offered to President Vladimir Voronin, not only by the PPCD groups but also by important components of the BMD, destroyed not only a powerful Opposition, but also the role of the Opposition in the Parliament for a long time. In sport, they say that a team plays at the level allowed by the opponent team. In the Parliament, the majority groups did not have a worthy adversary, but several small and non-experimented teams that were unsure what they wanted to obtain in this game. Most often, the majority groups treated these teams separately or set them on each other. Sometimes, they allowed themselves being set on. Being at loggerheads, even more serious than with the PCRM and PPCD, the former components of the BMD in the Parliament had been in organizational and identity-doctrinaire confusion and could not take coherent steps for a long time. The knock-down of April 4, 2005 that they caused themselves lasted for too long so that the could not pretend to play an important role in the Parliament whose mandate came to an end. It probably made them miss the chance of changing something in the future Parliament too. But we will see this after April 5, 2009 because regroupings and changes in the camp of the parliamentary Opposition took place anyway, in the second half of the mandate. [Positions and re-groupings in the Opposition] During the first two years of the mandate, [the group of the Moldova Noastra Alliance] licked the wounds caused from inside the BMD and from outside. But in the end, it created a clear image of the only Opposition force that can count to a certain extent on the same electorate that it says it did not betray. The harassment actions against the AMN leader Serafim Urecheanu like the ambulances case, which lasted for years, did not achieve their goal as he earned a positive image of “victim of the regime”. The latest move aimed at involving AMN activists in an alleged assassination attempt on the life of one of the leaders of the majority coalition, Iurie Rosca, was fully uninspired and showed the authorities’ weakness as the AMN gained another advantage of victim of the injustices caused by the power. The accusations against the AMN leader made by the General Prosecutor and Deputy Minister of the Interior at a news conference, when the investigation information cannot be made public even in the simplest cases, showed that the government coalition was directly involved and that it was uncertain. But it is not known how weighable these and other advantages will be for the voters given that the AMN at the initial stage was more dead than alive in the Parliament and almost unnoticed at the local level, while the usually monopolist media resources of the government coalition imbued the population with the idea that the parliamentary groups and parties have an exclusively negative image. [The Democratic Party and its parliamentary group] underwent a number of metamorphoses, some of which rather unanticipated. The most significant one is the fusion with the former Social-Liberal Party. Some of the changes were logical, while the others less logical, but all of them meant febrile searches for ways out of the dramatic situation created after the current components of the PDM faction gave their vote to Vladimir Voronin on April 4, 2005. The PDM did not gain the advantages it planned from that vote either because the PCRM did not want to share the government benefits with the PDM as it did with the PPCD or for other reasons. But the PDM lost much time looking for its identity and new niches on the political arena and in the eyes of the electorate. At least, its electoral message in the current campaign can be described as anticommunist, the PD of the previous format preferring middle, conciliatory positions. The new image and new message are difficult tasks that do not have immediate effects, for the same reasons as in the case of AMN. [The MPs that are not affiliated] to parliamentary groups for their part have grouped around other centers of influence. A part of them identify themselves with the new groups of the Liberal Democratic Party (PLDM) headed by MP Vladimir Filat and, respectively, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) led by MP Dumitru Braghis. The other part joined the European Action Movement (MAE) and the National Liberal Party (PNL) that appeared after the last parliamentary elections. The general conclusion of difficult and belated delivery of an Opposition force that could influence somehow the situation in the last Parliament is relevant to the PLDM as well. For the same reason, the party cannot be treated as an incontestable leader in the race for seats in the new Parliament, though is showed itself as an active and dynamic party with a serious human potential and, as it seems, with financial resources and other components of a modern party, shortly after appearance. The bad image that the majority coalition tries to impose on it could cause considerable damage but also bring great advantages, according to the AMN model. The presentation of the party by the media in a negative light is also publicity, even free one. The PSD appeared after the parties headed by Dumitru Braghis and Eduard Musuc merged into one. This party also underwent metamorphoses of identity and orientation, which did not allow its representatives to assert themselves in the current Parliament and outside it. The behavior of the PSD faction in the Chisinau Municipal Council (CMC) is a relevant example: from participation in the majority coalition without the PPCD and PCRM to creation of another coalition involving the two parties so that in the end the PSD remained practically outside both of them. The party’s electoral message is purely economic and does not clearly express its political position, including in relation with the majority coalition and current Opposition. In a way, the PSD took on the place and previous behavior of the PDM, the announced merger with which did not take place. The several MPs that joined the MAE were active and noticeable in the Parliament, did a lot and systematically to be visible in the press and at the local level even if they encountered problems related to the covering of the political forces’ activities in Moldovan style. This style is similar to the PLDM’s style, though the party has a more modest human potential. But it could face the same problems of time and recognition by the electorate as the Opposition parties as well as another common problem. [The unlearnt lesson] During the last four years, the parliamentary Opposition parties had in general a similar behavior. Every party had to make changes and modernizations on its own segment and learnt the lesson imposed by the rules of the political battle. But they did not show ability to learn another lesson and thus lag behind the majority coalition of the PPCD and PCRM, which overcame the frustrations, neglected and even faced the voters in order to remain together in power. The Opposition, including the parliamentary one, has not yet understood that the power in Moldova as well as in other parts can be seized by the same formal or informal coalitions. A great power is opposed by a power that is at least equal to it. The Opposition has not yet overcome the frustrations from after 2005 because it does not want to or is unable.