At the General Assembly of the United Nations, they spoke about democracy, the role and state of democracy in the contemporary world as about a global problem. It turned out that the state of democracy has both local manifestations and motives and regional and international manifestations and motives. More exactly, these manifestations and motives are in a visible and close interdependence that required a more complex and profound approach. The experts invited to a public debate held by IPN News Agency discussed the dangers to democracy in the contemporary world and the impact these can have on the Republic of Moldova.
Igor Boțan, the standing expert of IPN’s project, said democracy is the power of the people, for the people, through the people, in favor of the people. At the same time, democracy is the institutionalization of freedom and this is enshrined in the Constitution. “The first article of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova says that the Republic of Moldova is an independent and sovereign state. The republic is the form of government of the state and the characteristics come next: the Republic of Moldova is a democratic state with the rule of law in which human dignity, the human rights and freedoms, the free development of human personality, justice and political pluralism are supreme values,” stated Igor Boțan.
According to him, there is a pluralistic political regime in the Republic of Moldova, while democracy here can be said to be imitative or display democracy, a kind of hybrid political regime. “We have many flaws and these are related not only to the way in which the political class asserts itself, but also to the political culture as developed democracy cannot exist where the political culture is parochial, contemplative, where most of the citizens expect the government to solve their problems and do not become involved, as it happen in participatory democracies,” noted the expert.
He considers this is important as the political regime emphasizes the methods of appointing persons to managerial posts, the exercise and transfer of power, the role of violence, the activity of political players, the level of political competence, the extent to which the political elites come closer to the citizens, etc. If these things are taken together and analyzed, a sentence as to Moldova’s pluralistic political regime can be given, but the current democracy in Moldova is defective.
Victor Juc, director of the Institute of Legal, Political and Sociological Research, said that democracy evolved in time and is no longer strictly “the people’s power”. The level of freedom is another aspect. “From institutional-legal viewpoint, democracy is initially associated rather with parliamentarianism and then with constitutionalism. It happened so that democracy is associated with the Western cultural-civilizational model and this fact found an expression on the activities, on the actions that are taken by the Western states, if we use that Cold War term to imprint a particular level of democracy on other areas,” stated Victor Juc.
According to him, the Western countries consider the model they built is universal, but most of the other cultural-civilizational areas think this model is exclusively for the Western countries. “As to the Republic of Moldova, we practically forgot about the period of transition, but no one said that transition is over. It is very hard to finish this process. In the Republic of Moldova, we continue to be on the same provisional segment. Every time, at the start of a decade, a new government comes and the people have big expectations,” said the expert.
Viorel Cibotaru, director of the European Institute for Political Studies, said particular forms of democracy no longer match the formulas by which they were conceived given also the way in which political culture developed. “Humanity develops in cycles. Some of the phenomena and mistakes of the past reappear. Current, the people live a very interesting period in terms of the general state of democracy. The speech given by the President of the Republic of Moldova at the session of the UN General Assembly centered on issues that are now in the center of attention of international political elites. The ordinary citizen of the Republic of Moldova stands to gain from such an approach as the Republic of Moldova, through its representatives, in this case the President, the members of the Government, deliver these messages”.
A national and international security expert, Viorel Cibotaru noted that the pandemic was an example of global movement when many developed countries at a certain moment showed selfishness as to the invention of the vaccine, the production of medicines, etc. But later they entered a democratic movement to offer equal chances to all the citizens on earth, including those from poor countries that could not mobilize to respond to the pandemic crisis. Global democracy is in danger owing to the confrontations of interests between the great powers of the world.
The head of the Association for the Protection of Human Rights “Freedom Advocacy” (Brussels) Ana Ursachi said that in March 2020, the European Council started to identify the strategic objectives of the EU, which are to be achieved until 2024. They represent the reaffirmation of the powerful EU commitment to advance the universal values of humanity, such as respect for the human dignity, equality, the rule of law and respect for the human rights, which will continue to form the basis of all the EU policies, both internal and external.
According to the lawyer, the European Council implements a strategy by which the EU member states, including their representative offices in other countries, help other states to cope with the global challenges related to the environment, technology and the COVID-19 pandemic. The last one was a special test for the realization of human rights and the respect for the economic values, which affected the socially deprived sections all over the world.
The public debate “Dangers to democracy in the contemporary world: impact on the Republic of Moldova” was staged by IPN as part of the Developing Political Culture through Public Debates Project that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
