In debates held on Publika TV on July 4, 2018, Speaker of Parliament Andrian Candu spoke about the most unexpected and topical subjects from the current political agenda – invalidation of mayoral elections in Chisinau and the reactions of the development partners, especially the European Union. Referring to aspects of the mentioned problems, Andrian Candu suggested that there is no alternative to the acceptance of the court decisions to invalidate the elections, but also comes up with a concrete proposal – Parliament should interpret the notions: silence day; electoral agitation; call to vote, etc., and, respectively, to make amendments to the electoral legislation so as to avoid similar cases in the future.
The solution proposed by the Speaker deserves to be devoted attention. The problem is that the notions that are to be interpreted are so well-defined that it is highly improbable that their reexamination will produce added value. There are a series of documents and studies that offer an exhaustive interpretation of the mentioned terms, with the efforts being aimed at reducing more or less specific nuances. For example, electoral agitation can be interpreted only as realization of the right to opinion and expression. In an electoral context, electoral agitation should be regarded as the offering of equal chances to competitors for promoting messages and ideas. In the same regard, it is hard to imagine another interpretation of the silence day than the limitation of the right to opinion and expression for the purpose of avoiding confrontations on the election day between zealous supporters of an election runner. So, the term silence day does not have a value per se. But this does not mean that the silence day should be eliminated from the electoral legislation. For the level of our political culture, this is needed and its purpose is to discourage eventual clashes on the election day by administrative penalties, and nothing more.
The really pressing questions in this regard include those concerning the argumentation of the court decisions, especially why the four criteria that were stated in the Constitutional Court’s judgment of December 13, 2016 weren’t taken into consideration in the process of examining the application to validate the elections? To not reach the invalidation of the mayoral elections in Chisinau, it was enough to apply these factors cumulatively. The fact that the provisions of the CC judgement that were specially elaborated for being applied in the election validation procedure haven’t been applied appropriately fueled opinions about the political order to invalidate the elections.
This attitude, shared likewise by the opposition and its supporters and by the development partners, is based also on cumulative factors that fuel the lack of confidence in the government of the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM). Here Andrian Candu is right. The eventual suspension of the macro-financial assistance intended for Moldova by the EU will not create financial problems to the Government. It is the attitude that matters! But what the development partners’ attitude can be when the progress reports show, based on multiple examples, that justice is selective, the press is quasi-monopolized and no progress has been made in recovering the stolen US$1 billion, etc.? In such conditions, if they can resort to the invalidation of elections as never before, how can the EU’s unconditional support be correlated with the mentioned deviations? The EU’s dilemma was: to unconditionally support a government that deviates from the EU standards and values, undermining its prestige before the Moldovan citizens, or to show that the values are above everything and the eventual sanctions are aimed at correcting the government’s behavior. So, there are the EU standards and values versus the sincere embracing and implementation of these by the Moldovan authorities on the decisional scales. All the other interpretations are inconsequential like rainwater, but this rainwater washes away the pro-European appearance of the PDM before the parliamentary elections. This is serious and this is what Andrian Candu means when he says that the attitude matters!
Now the major interest is in the eventual electoral slogans of the PDM. How will they look like in pro-European packing? In this connection, Igor Dodon’s proposal to work out the European integration strategy of the Republic of Moldova, which was formulated at the recent Crans Montana Forum, is very interesting. The context is interesting - the PDM distances itself from the EU, while the Party of Socialists seeks to take the place of this?
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