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

Info-Prim Neo Agency continues the series of analysis of the performance of the Moldovan Parliament of the sixteenth legislature. The parts published this week focused on the distinctive features of the Parliament in general (March 9, 2009), the performance of the majority coalition composed of the Communist Party (PCRM) and the Christian-Democratic People’s Party (PPCD) (March 10, 2009), and on the performance of the Opposition represented by the parliamentary groups of the Moldova Noastra Alliance and the Democratic Party as well as MPs nonaffiliated to parliamentary groups, but grouped around other centers of influence (March 12, 2009). 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. Part IV centers on the behavior of the ruling political parties during the current election campaign. [The parliamentary majority is not present in the election campaign] Formally, the PCRM and PPCD are absent from the election campaign for the April 5 legislative elections. At least during the first month of the two stipulated in the legislation, both of the parties held practically no electoral events in the classical meaning: broadly covered meetings with the voters, news conferences, protests and other kinds of electoral activities. The PCRM held the official launch, which was yet challenged by the Opposition as it took place before the party was registered as election contender. It also organized a concert in the Great National Assembly Square, which was yet patronized by the party’s youth organization, and that’s all. Earlier this week, the PPCD held a news conference to present its electoral offer, but the party was represented by several young members that are not known by the general public. This is a completely new behavior for the PPCD and its leaders, whose image is obligatorily associated with maximum visibility, interminable protests that intensify significantly during election campaigns. They might modify the tactics in the second part of the election campaign and have a more active behavior for the general public. Most probably yet, these are strategies devised beforehand or imposed by the political situation. [The PCRM preoccupied with post-electoral projects] During another election campaign, the president of the country and of the PCRM Vladimir Voronin said that his party could give the airtime it had according to the legislation as element of the campaign to the Opposition. It seems that the PCRM preserved its style because everything it could do to improve its image in front of the electorate it did before the campaign, using the instruments possessed by a party that has governed the country for eight years, including administrative resources and not only. For example, the series of programs involving Russian journalists and radio and TV stations, where President Voronin appeared as Moldova’s guardian angel, closed several days before the announcement of the election campaign. Only the party that can decide when the election campaign should stat could calculate and do such a move, which was probable very costly. As we can see, the electoral staff of the PCRM renounced the more modern model of election campaign used in the elections for the Chisinau City Hall in 2007, like the “red glove” of the then candidate Veaceslav Iordan, and returned to safe methods tried out on the Moldovan electorate for many times. The voters in Moldova are used to identify the parties with their leaders and a ruling party has anytime the possibility of making its leaders visible. That’s why the PCRM replaced the traditional election campaign with working field visits by its leaders, visits abroad and partially with visits by foreign leaders to Moldova, simultaneously with the extensive but fully disproportional coverage of these events by a monopolist media holding controlled by it. But the Opposition has been denigrated before and during the campaign, and always. It is an absolutely inexpensive behavior for the party’s official budget. It seems as if the PCRM is now more preoccupied with post-electoral projects, including from the position of single ruling party, government coalition and Opposition party. For the first case, the PCRM has sufficient experience. For the second case, of coalition, one could examine the suppositions regarding the inclusion of satellite-competitors in the election race or the use of levers that turned out to be very efficient on April 4, 2005, when Vladimir Voronin was elected President. An example of project for a PCRM in Opposition after April 5, 2009 is the spending during the election campaign of practically all the money from the 2009 budget on increasing the salaries of budget-paid employees. It is easy to imagine what the budget-paid employees will do when a possible non-Communist Government announces there is no more money for further rises made mandatory by the normative documents adopted by the Communist Government. Such a prospect is very real, also because after elections Moldova will seriously feel the world financial crisis, which, as the present government now says, does not have considerable impacts on the country’s economy. One can also imagine what the media holding strengthened by the PCRM while in power can do in relation with the new government. [The PPCD’s silence as electoral find?] Until these elections, the PPCD carried out active, broad, even aggressive election campaigns, every time accompanied by a powerful “find”. Now it is more silent. Maybe “the find of 2009” has not been yet announced or maybe the silence is that “find”. The find is designed to create the impression of a solid, mature and a little mysterious party and to mean the “descend from tree” as method frequently used by the leaders of the party to manage protests. But this “solidity” could have been imposed by the political situation and the image obtained by the party, which chanted earlier ‘Down with the Communists!’ but accepted to cooperate with the PCRM after the party’s parliamentary group voted in favor of Vladimir Voronin, while its leader Iurie Rosca accepted the post of deputy Speaker. The PPCD, as well as the PCRM, use the resources accumulated during the previous parliamentary term. These resources are mainly media resources and are aimed against the Opposition parties. There were launched several books. The critical programs of a TV channel are broadcast permanently and more frequently during the election campaign. Maybe this behavior will bring electoral advantages to the PPCD according to the Chinese one drop rule, but also disadvantages because anyway it covers the activities of its contenders. We will see this after April 5. It is already clear yet that the given tactic of the party will be seriously affected as TVR recently banned this TV channel from retransmitting TVR International. The print media says that TVR made such a decision because the given Chisinau channel “does not manage to be impartial and objective” and became “an instrument for propaganda for a party or another”. TVR officials said that such a behavior damages the image of the Romanian public broadcaster. It is a blow not to the television channel, which can anytime start retransmitting another channel, but to the PPCD that counted on the TV trump card in a noble Romanian context associated with the Romanian state. In the height of the election campaign, the party will have to regroup and identify other ‘finds’ because it is exposed to great risks, also because it does not have time. This means that the PPCD has fewer variants of being present in the future Parliament to consider than the PCRM, but by one variant regarding the passing of the election threshold more. [The last part of the Info-Prim Neo analysis “Parliament … is dead! Long live the Parliament!” will focus on the electoral behavior of the Opposition parliamentary groups.]