In the Republic of Moldova, we have contemplative, decent people, but these want someone else to solve their problems. They want a “father” whom they would trust and would vote, Igor Boțan, the standing expect of IPN’s project, stated in the public debate “Stakes of presidential elections in view of political class and society” that was staged by IPN News Agency.
According to him, Igor Dodon has a reformulated electoral program that is similar to the programs of Vladimir Voronin or Vladimir Plahotniuc. He wants Moldova to become a semi-presidential republic where the President can name the Government without the Parliament’s involvement.
“For example, the stake of the parliamentary elections of 2019 was to remove Plahotniuc and this goal was achieved. But Igor Dodon didn’t set such a goal,” stated the expert.
Igor Dodon is satisfied with the Eastern Partnership and does not want to extend his stake further, while the stake of the parties of the right is the European model, where the President is a kind of symbol, an intellectual who transmits messages to the power.
According to Igor Boțan, in the current campaign Igor Dodon is distancing himself from the Socialists, but this does not really suit him as he banks primarily on the voters of the Party of Socialist as he has no other supporters. Therefore, he adjusts his message to the status-quo.
“If we had had an honest pro-European President and European majorly, most of our problems would have been solved as we would have had an interval of time during which we could implement what’s written in the Association Agreement with the EU, persuade our European partners that we are reliable partners, while to those from the East we could tell that we are not against them and want to have good relations with them.”
The expert noted that given the Moldova political culture, we must understand that the citizens anyway look at the political leaders and want these to formulate very clear things that they would understand and would eventually give their votes to them. But this does not happen and they are somehow confused and thus do not go to vote.
“Our society has a problem. If there is parochial political culture where the citizens are contemplative and look at those who offer them presents before the elections, they will surely support these. This is a phenomenon that everyone understands and this can be combated and should be combated only by political forces that have political capacity to explain to the citizens where all evil things come from.”
The public debate “Stakes of presidential elections in view of political class and society” was the 154th installment of the series “Developing political culture through public debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
