UE as a trump card to reach out to voters

The election campaign preceding the legislative elections on November 28 proceeds slowly, without sparkling moments that could attract the voters' attention in a particular way. The situation could change if some of the electoral contenders would be able to exploit more efficiently, including for electoral purposes, the endorsement which Moldova has been enjoying lately from the European Union. This was one of the conclusions formulated by Valeriu Vasilica, the director of the news agency Info-Prim Neo, at a talk show on Radio Europa Libera on Sunday dedicated to the election campaign at half-time. According to Valeriu Vasilica, the campaign has actually just started, with a delay of nearly one month. “Our politicians may have learned the Moldovan legislation well, but they haven't learned the psychology of the Moldovan voter. In fact, today we are one full month into the electoral period, but not into the election campaign, too. True, a few billboards have appeared here and there, which one might even find vote-winning, but frankly they leave me cold. I'm trying to look at things in this election campaign (and maybe I'm making a risky statement here) through the eyes of the Party of Communists. I think that they won, to some extent, the battle for the September 5 referendum and I'm trying to see what they do and what they don't. Because, it seems to me, they know the psychology of the Moldovan voter better, they know how to manipulate it in order to win votes”. “And from this perspective, I see that the PCRM hasn't got billboards, they don't go to television programs too often. Yet I know that they go from home to home. I don't know too many similar examples about other parties on the other side of the Moldovan party system. And I don't see too many people concerned with electoral activities in the street either”. In continuation of the subject, host Vasile Botnaru recalled the comments made by sociologists Arcadie Barbarosie and Doru Petruti at a recent roundtable, who said that the other political parties should observe very attentively the experience of the Communists who “know how to recruit the undecided, especially in the last hundred yards of the race”. For his part, analyst Nicolae Negru begged to differ: “I don't agree that the Communists are that shrewd and skilled in attracting people to their camp. They were eight years in power, they had mass media at their disposal to do a lot of brainwashing”. Valeriu Vasilica remarked that the two major camps in this race, the PCRM and the Alliance for European Integration, are in different conditions. “Even if in government for only one year, many things happened in the meantime: some prices have risen, some expectations have been failed. And from a psychological viewpoint, the government has always had more to lose. The Communists patiently waited until they attacked the Alliance on all levels. Take this levee issue for example, I'd even call it a diversion. And I have to admit it was an original one. The Alliance should find something to put up against, and very quick, too.” At the same time “the Alliance has been unable during this year of government to get through at least one of the accusations leveled against the Communists earlier. Practically nothing of what was claimed to be cases of corruption or treason has been resolved”, said Valeriu Vasilica. However, Nicolae Negru thinks that the PCRM's accusation concerning the purposed explosion of a levee that caused flooding this summer is “a very foolish act”. “Whilst Mr. Vasilica says it was an original move of the Communists, I would say they acted very foolishly. Now the ball is in the government's court. Because the Communists said the levee had been broken to save the city of Galati. But Galati is 25 kilometers from the Prut. Furthermore, it lies on the Danube, and this is actually a trap, in which I think the Communists themselves fell. This one has only started and I think we could see new developments in the course of the election campaign”, said Nicolae Negru. As things are arranged at present, it is unlikely that all the parties that will make it to Parliament will be keen to cooperate with each other, says Valeriu Vasilica. “So the only chance is for them to get used to this state of affairs now. Each of the camps, the PCRM and the AEI, should find one more trump card to create favorable circumstances for themselves, a comfortable number of votes to be able to elect the president. I believe that one of the two camps could exploit a gesture shown by the European Union lately by supporting the Alliance rather openly and even in advance”. “Perhaps this is the way. To knock from door to door and tell people that if they vote in a certain way they will have certain things. Otherwise, they will have totally different things. I don't see anything else that could work at this point and this is the reason for my pessimism that we will not be able to elect a president in the next parliament either. Unless they find something new, something no one has yet found”, said Valeriu Vasilica.