The high number of potential candidates for the office of President is due to the fact that some of the politicians perceive the October 20 elections as a springboard to the 2025 parliamentary elections, said the chairman of the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) Igor Grosu. According to him, the multitude of potential candidates is also explained by the fact that the electoral legislation became more permissive and the process of collecting signatures was simplified, IPN reports.
The PAS leader noted that the larger number of potential candidates for the position of President was predictable given that the rules for registration in the race were simplified. Moreover, this year’s presidential elections are a good opportunity for many politicians to prepare for the 2025 parliamentary elections.
“The new Electoral Code greatly relaxed the conditions for entering the race. If we refer to the procedure for collecting signatures, I remember that in the previous exercise, everything was much more finicky. Now the procedure is simpler. Things for independent candidates were simplified. Everything is much more relaxed, more pro-candidate, more democratic. This has motivated some who want to test their political future. The second aspect is that many perceive these elections as a springboard for 2025. Many understand their chances, but want to test their muscles, to go out in public to see what electorate they can count on,” Igor Grosu stated in the talk show “The Shadow Cabinet” on JurnalTV.
The PAS chairman said that more representatives of the Russian Federation could be found on the ballot paper on October 20 as Moscow no longer relies on a single candidate and introduced several pro-Kremlin voices into the race to test their potential.
“The third aspect concerns the geopolitical part, of the older brother at the Kremlin who threw more pawns into the campaign. Moscow understands that it does not have a favorite, but introduced several persons to test them and see what their potential is. Their cynicism is beyond our imagination. They were supposedly told to contend in the race to see how brave they are. We carefully follow everyone’s behavior. We will focus on our campaign and on our objective. We go to localities and explain to the people the importance of the elections and the referendum,” said the PAS leader.
Since the start of submissions for the registration of initiative groups to support candidates for the office of President of the Republic of Moldova, the CEC has registered 13 initiative groups. It also approved the registration of Alexandr Stoianoglo as a candidate for the office of President, nominated by the Party of Socialists. Alexandr Stoianoglo is the first candidate registered in the electoral race.