“Anyway, owing to COVID-19, we will go to vote equipped with masks and gloves, so that if we take with us also a clip to fasten our nose, we will definitely manage to vote without generating some reflexes. We also have a hope - that the politicians rejected by natural selection in the first round of voting will not cause harm to those elected for the runoffs. However, why should we be afraid as we know that “nature abhors a vacuum”…”
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General characteristic of Moldovan political fauna

Biological science studies with great success the vegetal kingdom and animal kingdom. The religious leaders and great antique philosophers reached the conclusion that the man – the creation of nature or God – is a political animal. That’s why we should speak about the political fauna. As any animals, the politicians have instincts and reflexes that characterize them on the whole – fight for the power and political survival accompanied by the personal enrichment tendency. The social environment in which they are born and develop models the politicians by the form and appearance of the habitat. Moldovan society is bound to Byzantinism, which is to the way of living and surviving by intrigues, astuteness, useless or frivolous subtleties. In the Soviet times, the medieval Byzantinism was improved in accordance with the Moral code of the communism builder and transformed into a pull – solving of problems through useful contracts so as to obtain all kinds of benefits, bypassing the generally accepted rules and laws.

So, in virtue of the environment that forces them, most of the Moldovan politicians are a priori established shreds. As any representative of the fauna, the Moldovan politicians suffer from a series of inborn diseases and also from very specific forms expressed by the disproportionate development of the ventricle, which hampers the normal fueling of the brain with nutritive substances. The interminable discussions about the place and role of the Moldovan whims derive from here.

The Moldovan political fauna suffer also from transmitted diseases, some of which are of local origin, while others were imported. Anyway, the main pathogen agents are the flocks of journalists, experts in political sciences, political consultants, bloggers, trolls, etc., who are in the service of some of the politicians and against others. These parasites have the task of changing the colors of the chromatic spectrum, making the ordinary citizens ignore the nuances and perceive the black color as which and vice versa, in favor of politicians who pay them. 

Categories of Moldovan political fauna

It’s not surprising that after over 25 years of harsh political struggles, the Republic of Moldova remains the poorest and most underdeveloped country in Europe, being abandoned en masse by the own citizens. During these years, we had in power: Communists, Socialists, Social-Democrats, Liberals, Liberal-Democrats, Democrats, Christian-Democrats and all kinds of alliances of these. They lied, committed illegalities and/or bought politicians of any political color, with the difference residing only in proportions.

So, the doctrine or ideology shared by the politicians can no longer serve as a criterion for sorting out the wheat from the chaff. In such circumstances, the representatives of the political fauna found another method of attracting the citizens into their net traps. The new approach seems to be pragmatic – if we anyway cannot ensure decent administration for the citizens, why shouldn’t we explore neighbors’ and foreign partners’ interests? As there are normally misunderstandings and tensions between the foreign partners, the representatives of the Moldovan political fauna explore the attachment to each other, naming the given fuss geopolitical orientation. This way, new categories of the Moldovan political fauna appeared during the last 15-20 years – Eurasian, unionist and pro-European ones. The dispute between the representatives of these categories is accompanied by storms, as it happened in the case of the famous US$1 billion, and is limited to the clarification who of the neighbors or foreign partners could eventually assume responsibility for the Republic of Moldova so as to save it from collapse.  

It’s clear that the Republic of Moldova’s collapse can cause serious problems to the neighbors and the foreign partners – illegal migration, trafficking in arms, drugs, organs and human beings, etc. As the neighbors and foreign partners want to avoid unpleasant situations, they have to pay for the Republics of Moldova to stay afloat. The European Union, the U.S. and Russia allocate billions of dollars in budget support, for infrastructure, humanitarian and other kinds of projects. On the other hand, Russia anchored the Republic of Moldova to Transnistria and Gazprom’s pipe, allowing or barring the Moldovan agricultural products’ access to its market and balancing this way Western influences. How to avoid geopolitical speculations in such circumstances?  

Presidential elections and natural selection

The presidential elections set for November 1, 2020 will definitely be very important as they represent a kind of natural selection process covering the three categories. After the presidential elections, ordinary or snap parliamentary elections will follow and the winners of the natural selection in these will play a really important role in the configuration of the real power.

For now, we are witnessing pre-selection that does not really inspire optimism. Of 48 political parties allowed by the Central Election Commission (CEC) to take part in elections, only 11 fielded candidates, while 5 of these parties proposed a common candidate. No one has illusions about the candidate of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM). Even if President Igor Dodon has to run independently, as this is how the Constitutional Court decided, he is actually the PSRM’s informal candidate.

So, the Eurasian category is represented by the informal leader of the PSRM Igor Dodon, who, by his propagandistic instruments, will confuse the minds of the ordinary people with statements about the balanced foreign policy and other artifices that he used in his progress Report. In fact, Igor Dodon was and remains the candidate of the Russian imperial movement, while the PSRM continues to represent the intransigent Eurasian option, pleading for the scraping of the Association Agreement with the EU and the joining of the Eurasian Economic Union, as the party’s political program provides. The recent scandals where Igor Dodon was a protagonist make him a symbol of the national Byzantinism that is hidden behind chess games. But this does not seem to diminish his chances of being reelected as President.

Surely, a significant part of the voters with mainly pro-Eurasian views will be deviated by the candidate of the Shor Party (PS) Violeta Ivanov and the candidate of the Our Party (PPPN) Renato Usatyi. The Shor Party created a rather wide network of beneficiaries of the so-called social stores, who admit that the politicians are thieves, but what matters for them is that those politicians share somehow their wealth with them. Evidently, such views perfectly match the pull-based system. As regards the leader of the Our Party Renato Usatyi, this not only once publicly expressed his admiration for Alexandr Lukashenko’s regime so that he falls under the same Eurasian class. It’s true the leaders of the three Eurasian parties are in conflict, but they also have many things in common for making a common cause, if they are stimulated to do this.

The pro-European category will be probably represented in elections by four parties that are divided inside them into anti-oligarchic parties and pro-oligarchic parties. The candidate of Pro-Moldova Party (PPM) Andrian Candu is considered the exponent of the interests of the ex-coordinator of the power Vlad Plahotniuc, who is considered by the Prosecutor General’s Office one of the main beneficiaries of the US$ 1 billion theft. On the other hand, the candidate of the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM) Tudor Deliu is a politician who can be reproached for nothing else but for his consent to run on behalf of the party led by ex-Premier Vlad Filat, who was one of Plahotniuc’s victims and who served four years in jail after an absolutely vitiated trial. However, no one can omit the fact that the old-new leader of the PLDM Vlad Filat accepted the poisonous gifts of Ilan Shor in the amount of only US$ $40 million, not of US$ $250 million, as Ilan Shor asserted. Consequently, the two alleged pro-European parties represent symbol leaders of the oligarchy and corruption in the Republic of Moldova. They did the biggest harm to the European integration process of the country by offering solid arguments to the declared enemies of the country’s Europeanization – the PSRM, which didn’t hesitate to use them to come to power.

The pro-European and anti-oligarchic parties – the Party “Dignity and Truth Platform” (PPDA) and the Party of Action and Solidary (PAS) – appeared, strengthened themselves and acted concertedly in order to resist the corrupt oligarchy. After the collapse of Vlad Plahotniuc’s regime, the cooperation between the PPDA and PAS faded away, the parties becoming rivals, in parts committed ones. This dramatically affected their images and makes them less credible. Indeed, if Igor Dodon, as the leaders of the two parties Maia Sandu and Andrei Năstase assert, is an oligarch that is as toxic as Vlad Plahotniuc, why don’t the PAS and PPDA oppose together, as they opposed Plahotniuc? How can they explain the fact that they offered President Dodon arguments for removing them from power in November 2019? In fact, the explanation resides in naivety, especially in the lack of capacities to communicate more of less efficiently. It wasn’t necessary to become Byzantine supporters similar to Igor Dodon.  What was important was to take into account the fact that their opponent forms part of this class. So, they should have known to communicate efficiently between then and with potential allies and also with opponents. It seems that they will never learn to do this.

The unionist category has two protagonists – Dorin Chirtoacă, the leader of the Union Political Movement (MPU), and Octavian Țîcu, the leader of the National Unity Party (PUN). In opinion polls (page 32), the two have a rating lower than the sampling error even if the same polls show that the number of supporters of the Republic of Moldova’s union with Romania has increased (page 36) to 37%! The two leaders experience a big communication problem and this is to be solved by natural selection, on November 1.

Dorin Chirtoacă has the advantage of being an excellent speaker. In the memory of unionists, he is the main animator of the policies of the current that gradually, in 2007 and 2009, removed the Communists from the administration in Chisinau and then from the country’s administration. The last was taken over by the Alliance for European Integration (AEI) that raised people’s expectations and then downed them when the theft of the US$ 1 billion became known. Even if he didn’t make any contribution to those notorious events, now Dorin Chirtoacă pays for the mistakes made by the Liberal Party (PL) while being part of the AEI, which in critical moments joined in and constantly served the interests of oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc.

Unlike Dorin Cirtoacă, who built himself as a politician, his unionist mate Octavian Țîcu was favored by the pro-European parties with whose assistance he got to the highest state posts, becoming a minister and an MP, for his qualities of refined intellectual, even if he repeatedly showed that he focuses mainly on the own interests, showing his back to the benefactors. So, he rather matches the Byzantine standards. One more problem that cannot be ignored can be added here. It seems that Octavian Țîcu is unable to control his reflexes of boxer and is thus an authentic Homo Sovieticus Intolerantus.      

Conclusions

After the description of the Moldovan political fauna, we easily realize that we do not have many options in the November 1 presidential elections. But we will have to make a choice. As usual, we will have to choose the lesser evil. Anyway, owing to COVID-19, we will go to vote equipped with masks and gloves, so that if we take with us also a clip to fasten our nose, we will definitely manage to vote without generating some reflexes. We also have a hope - that the politicians rejected by natural selection in the first round of voting will not cause harm to those elected for the runoffs. However, why should we be afraid as we know that “nature abhors a vacuum.