The director of the consulting agency Intellect Group Ian Lisnevschi considers that no mass protests will be held after the presidential elections. “From the viewpoint of technologies, time can be easily found between the first round of voting and the runoffs for mobilizing the people to protests, but the politicians lack mobilization potential,” the expert noted in IPN’s public debate “Election rigging: how it is done, how to fight it”.

“Maia Sandu will be unable to manage the protests. Renato Usatyi will be able to, but Sandu will never allow another leader to direct the protests. She will not want to concede political advantages to Andrei Năstase,” explained Ian Lisnevschi.

According to him, the union of the two leaders could be influenced from outside the country, but another factor would appear in that case. “Until now the mass protests didn’t bring about changes. The politicians destroyed the protesting potential of society and the people no longer believe that they can obtain something by protests,” he said.

Ian Lisnevschi noted that the candidates running for President do not struggle for the own voters. “When, for example, a candidate of the right criticizes a candidate of the left, this does not get votes, but his opponent does and vice versa. The entire current campaign is based on mutual accusations between the candidates,” said the expert in political strategies.

He said the fact that those from the right argue between them is a disadvantage. By such a gesture they divided the own voters who now do not trust other politicians of the right and will not go to vote for them in the runoffs.

The public debate “Election rigging: how it is done, how to fight it” was held as part of the mini-series “We and the President: who elects who, who represents who?” that is part of the project “Developing political culture through public debate” that is implemented by IPN with support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation.