Power and opposition are sick, expert

“The opposition and the power are not fully healthy. They are both sick from the viewpoint of political culture because they assimilate participatory democracy with difficulty,” expert Igor Botan, the executive director of the Association for Participatory Democracy (ADEPT), said in the public debates “Inefficient political ping-pong with alternation of roles. Culture of the political relations between government and parliamentary opposition”, staged by Info-Prim Neo. Igor Botan stated that the Communist Party of Moldova (PCRM) is not really a Communist party. “It is a conservative party in the good meaning of the word and this is very important. This party enjoys poplar support and its great advantage is that its message is based on the parochial political culture. We should not be surprised at such a powerful connection between the PCRM and the Church. They caught this wave after the passing of the antidiscrimination law and use it to the maximum. This wave is based on the parochial political culture of our citizens,” said the expert. On the other hand, the Liberal Party (PL) is not fully liberal, said Igor Botan. “Its electoral platforms show that it is a social party that takes care of the people and wants many of the problems to be solved with money from the state budget, not by liberal initiative,” stressed the ADEPT director. He also said that the PL’s rhetoric has historical and political backing and affects the perception of a large number of people, as in the case of the PCRM. “The conclusion is that there are formulas worked out for such societies, one of which is the deliberative democracy. But, after such deliberations, we must shift to procedural democracy. This means that the decisions are taken based on agreed procedures that lead to solutions acceptable to most of the people. This way, we will come closer to normality as everybody knows that the procedures help achieve success,” said the expert. The debates organized by Info-Prim Neo form part of the Development of the Political Culture through Public Debates Project that is supported by the German foundation Hanns Seidel.