The preparations for the parliamentary elections of February 24, 2019 started on December 1, 2018. All the opinion polls carried out in the course of this year show only four-five parties would really compete for the 101 seats of MP. Another over 10-15 parties will play, as usual, the role of figurants. It is now interesting to follow the duel between representatives of the ruling party that has the largest financial, media, administrative and other kinds of resources and representatives of the party that enjoys the greatest electoral support among the people and that is not at all short of resources. Moreover, they broadly exploit the Soviet nostalgia, juggle with the Russian carrot and stick – opening of the Russian market to Moldovan products on condition that namely this party wins.
Such a duel took place in the program “The Pole” on Accent TV channel. MP Dumitru Diacov, president of honor of the ruling Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM), confronted MP Vladimir Țurcan, heavyweight of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM). It should be noted that the two rival parties have many things in common. The most important factor is that their party elites consist of direct descendants of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM). It should also be noted that the two parties signed cooperation agreements with the ruling party of the Russian Federation – United Russia: the PDM on September 16, 2010, while the PSRM on June 8, 2017. Therefore, it is not at all accidental that the two representatives dueled mildly. It is yet strange that recently the two parties, by mutual agreement, unveiled the hybrid war waged by Russia against Moldova. The positive things is that the two parties were solidary in this somehow delicate episode as well.
The representative of the PDM Dumitru Diacov as usual set the conciliatory tone, saying that if the next four years are quiet and they work in normal conditions, things will calm down and there will be no confrontations, as some like to have, and there will be new accomplishments. We will have good roads, workplaces... Look, 900 kindergartens were repaired! When did you see something like this in the Republic of Moldova?”. This message of Dumitru Diacov was polyvalent. On the one hand, it contained a call for cooperation based on the things the two parties have in common. On the other hand, he emphasized the good things done by the PDM. In this regard, the rhetoric question as to when so many good things were done was put to refresh the memory.
The given question is interesting as the issue of good deeds has been largely exploited in the election campaign of 2014 too. It was later brought into focus again, at the start of the new mandate, in 2015, when the PDM governed together with the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM) under a minority coalition. In this regard, Dumitru Diacov should have simply invoked the support of the government of Romania – the grant of €20 million for repairing kindergartens. This was important for underlining that the PDM, unlike there PSRM, has a cooperation agreement also with the ruling party of Romania – the Social Democratic Party, not only with the United Russia, as the PSRM. This is the essential difference between the two parties. Indeed, more friends, more grants. This is only an adjustment of the political saying a humble calf sucks the most milk (meaning a person with humility will reap good rewards) that was promoted by the leader of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM)Vladimir Voronin, the mentor of the party elites of the PDM and PSRM.
From the aforementioned, we can draw the preliminary conclusion that the PDM better understood Vladimir Voronin’s wise saying than the political descendants from the PSRM. But the PDM has its own unique formulations. T underline this, Dumitru Diacov invoked the way in which they built roads in Moldova after the revenues collected into the state budget were augmented: “surely, this is not yet felt as the repair of 1 km of road in a village, or sometimes even of 5 km or 150 or 300 meters where there is mud is not enough... But we need roads first of all so as to revitalize the economy”.
Vladimir Țurcan’s reply came immediately. The representative of the PSRM reminded that in 2008, when he and the current leaders of the party Igor Dodon and Zinaida Grecheanyi formed part of the ruling PCRM, “the annual growth of the GDP was 2.5 times higher than now. But the GDP growth now is 2.5 times lower than the growth of the internal and external debts”. Here is the difference between the two categories of political descendants from one source – the PCRM.
The mutual agreement of the two party elites is the optimistic part of this competition. In this regard, the mild and conciliatory duel of the representatives of the PDM and PSRM makes us think that it is possible to ensure political stability at the post-electoral phase, as it happened in 2012, when the two parties cooperated in order to do as many good things as possible.
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