The candidates running in the snap parliamentary elections of July 11 hope to attract voters by populist promises rather than by concrete offers and well-defined strategies for developing the country during a four-year period. Many of the electoral promises in the social and economic spheres are not feasible from financial viewpoint, while the proposals of some of the candidates even run against the principles of market economy, the national legislation and international commitments assumed by the Republic of Moldova, said experts of the Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup”, who analyzed the electoral programs of the contenders in cooperation with Friedrich Ebert Foundation Moldova, IPN reports.
“Expert-Grup” executive director Adrian Lupușor said the electoral programs are the main public documents with whose assistance the election contenders try to persuade the voters. In Moldova, the situation is different. The contenders mainly do not devote sufficient attention to these documents, while the discussions focus rather on attacks on person, superficial discussions and less on country ideas, views and reforms needed to develop Moldova.
Most of the promises of election contenders are aimed at supporting the business community, primarily SMEs and national producers, reducing social inequalities, increasing financial autonomy of the local authorities and providing these with critical infrastructure, repaired roads and industrialization, extending wooded areas and irrigated areas, etc. Some of the candidates come with ‘revolutionary’ proposals that are principally unimplementable, such as the public control of prices of different categories of products, mandatory quotas for SMEs on public procurement, building of state-run factories all over the country, nationalization of enterprises that import alcohol, oil and tobacco products.
The Party of Regions of Moldova suggests reviewing the mechanism for apportioning land in accordance with the National Program “Land”, but this program was implemented over 20 years ago and by this collective property was transferred under the private property of farmers.
As the older persons were the most active voters at the previous elections, the contenders in the current campaign make different promises concerning higher pensions. For example, PAS suggests instituting a minimum pension of 2,000 lei, PDCM – of 2,088 lei and offering of the 13th pension to those whose pension is under the minimum subsistence level. The Bloc “Renato Usatîi” promises a minimum pension of 2,500 lei, the PPPDA of up to 3,000 lei, AUR and PUN of 3,500 lei and 4,000 lei respectively.
Two of the competitors, PACE and the Bloc “Renato Usatîi”, in their programs focus on the police force and on the institutions of a so-called police state.
The authors of the analysis said that most of the electoral promises of the contenders do not have financial backing as the fulfillment of the made promises necessitates much larger financial resources than the budget possibilities.
