From the perspective of the political interest in the negotiations on the formation of a pro-European coalition that are expected to start this week, the Liberal Party (PL) has the strongest, but also the weakest position. Such a conclusion is formulated in the analysis “Pro-European coalition between national interests and party interests” that was published by IPN on July 6, 2015. Its author Valeriu Vasilica provided several arguments in favor of such a conclusion.
“The PLDM and PDM didn’t manage to go far, including on the path of European integration, within the minority coalition they formed. The PL kept the pause after the conditions it put forward in the previous negotiations weren’t accepted and the time turned out to be on its side. Form these positions, the PL’s slogan in the negotiations will be ‘everything or nothing’ and would be replaced in parts only with ‘a lot’ because the party or rather its leaders feel as comfortable in power as in the opposition. Mihai Ghimpu himself confirmed that he does not need to be in government as he anyway secures his presence in Parliament with a minimum of seats,” he wrote.
The second argument is the harsh precondition that was already formulated: the PLDM and PDM should negotiate with the PL only, not yet with the Party of Communists (PCRM). “The ‘major anticommunism’ of the PL may be justified by ideological reasons, but also by party motives too. In a narrow coalition, of only two parties, the role of the PL and, respectively, the possibilities of satisfying the party interests increase in geometrical proportion up to ‘everything or nothing’. In a broad coalition, involving the PCRM, if this accepts the pro-European course publicly, the PL’s possibilities diminish significantly. In fact, these return to their normal proportions for a party with the fewest number of seats of MP,” it is said in the analysis.
The third argument derives from the PL’s demands concerning the prosecutor general and the head of state. “There are signs that the PL can give up the previous demand to appoint a ‘European prosecutor’ , at least for the benefit of the country’s budget, which will be unable to bear a salary of €200,000 a year, as Mihai Ghimpu admitted himself. But the same signs show that the PL will be categorically in favor of distributing the post of head of state, with this being elected in Parliament. The party and personal interests reside in the fact that only this way can the PL claim to have its representative in the post of head of state. This cannot happen by direct election of the President as the ‘minimum’ of seats here is not sufficient. Without the PCRM, the head of state cannot be elected in Parliament, while the PL would reject the PCRM as a negotiation partner, not speaking about this party in the role of a government partner. Even if the next coalition is formed, it is easy to anticipate that this position of the PL will lead to a situation when the ‘motherland and the European course’ will be again in danger in less than a year, when presidential elections will take place,” said the author.
He noted that the supreme political interest of the parties, including the Moldovan pro-European ones, is to obtain and/or keep power. They all want to govern and any other declared goals are either intermediary stages or political propaganda or perversion.
