IPN analysis: How is the Moldovan political class managing the current internal and external risks and challenges? What ways and methods does it use to communicate about it with society? What is the public’s relationship with what’s called the “new press” and the traditional press? These questions will be covered in the following analysis, based on the examination of a communication example about a real or potential breakdown of the governing Pro-European Coalition.
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We are living in troubled times and there are no signs of things settling down, perhaps on the opposite. The dangers, risks and challenges that face Moldova are still on the rise, and society and the political class barely manage to identify why and where do these come from and can’t always react properly to attenuate them. It has been stated, in broad lines, that these dangers, risks and challenges, come on the backdrop of signing the Association Agreement between Moldova and the EU and of the regional crisis that arose because Ukraine signed a similar agreement, and that they target the results of the elections on November 30. In fact, these elections are just as important as a lever to maintain or change the country’s European path.

Dangers, risks and challenges, internal and external

The dangers, risks and challenges are of two kinds: internal and external. Moldova and especially its political class have very few tools to manage the external ones and the case of the Russian Federation is a relevant one. Russia acts in relation to Moldova, and to Ukraine as well, according to its own interests and motives, which Moldova is hardly able to influence diplomatically, for example. It can only ask for the support of other important international actors, but these have their own interests as well, and they can help Moldova’s only insofar as they don’t want to damage their relations with Russia.

On the other hand, Moldova can better withstand the external dangers, risks and challenges if it can muster the will and ability to timely and judiciously manage the internal ones. Managing the situation that the farmers found themselves in after the Russian embargo is an eloquent example. In this case, we can say the authorities reacted adequately, finding sufficiently realistic solutions, but they are a bit off pace with the real aid that must ultimately reach those who have suffered because of the embargoes.

Some of the opposition MPs have already called for an urgent meeting of the Parliament to discuss these issues. Of course, their solutions revolve around “denouncing the Agreement with the EU”, but the timing of the initiative matters. Their call may find fertile electoral ground as the embargoes bear on a large category of individuals and companies who are worried and afraid, now and yesterday. In the meanwhile, the government and the Parliament are yet to officially adopt all the necessary decisions so that the promised aid reaches its destination. According to some sources, the Parliament could meet to this goal in early September and this should speed things up. However, the principle of the half-full glass might be applied here: some will see the full half, others the empty half. It won’t be surprising should the farmers interpret the situation as “the village is burning and the parliamentarians are on holiday”.

Real or false alarm?

This one has also been said before: the major condition to ensure the management of dangers, risks and challenges of any kind is maintaining political stability within the country, at least until the parliamentary elections, and this can be done, in turn, by maintaining stability and political peace within the governing coalition. Officially, everyone agrees with this, but below the iceberg’s visible tip, more obscure things are happening.

Last week, reports appeared on the web that one of the leaders of the governing coalition wants its destruction (again). There is no clear evidence, only references to some texts published on the same web by other netizens.

We want to be a free society where everyone can have its say without obstacles, including on the Internet, and perhaps we should pay no attention to statements like those above, perhaps even encourage those who worry about the current and future fate of the Pro-European Coalition. Unfortunately, there are two reasons why we can’t afford to do so.

One: The internal stability of the Pro-European Coalition is dependent not only on its members and so any troubling signals should be carefully examined. Two: “Signals” and the people launching them are part of a new phenomenon in our lives, but one that is already very important and influential, that’s why it must be studied even more attentively on this occasion.

The Coalition: Pro- without Counter-

About the stability of the Coalition and the real and unreal dangers that threaten it.

Apparently, pro-European parties forming the current coalition seem to have overcome "childhood disease" of the coalition democracy that deeply marked its first four years of government. In the past year, they demonstrated civilized behavior in interparty relations and between the leaders of the parties, without any recurrence of the frequent and shameful "washings of dirty linen in public" as before. A year is a long time, enough to draw conclusions about the lack of threats to political stability in this segment.

More deeply, none of the three component parties of the current pro-European coalition can be interested in a breakup now, without the risk of losing the next elections, let alone the responsibility for contributing to the hijacking of the country's European course. If they are sincere, and there is no reason to suspect the contrary, all three parties, and even a few other pro-European ones, are aware that the next pro-European government has no alternative but to be a coalition, with the stake being mainly on the current parliamentary parties. The alternative is only a leftist government, including the Communist Party, with or without allies, but it will not be a European government.

None of the members are interested in a breakup

After all calculations, all three coalition parties today are aware that they need each other, or otherwise won't remain in power and won't achieve their electoral goals regarding Moldova's European integration. Furthermore, each of them hope to win the elections precisely with an European message, and breaking the Pro-European Coalition today would be a conscious act of political suicide. And if one of these parties, PDM, could enter the elections with some social slogans and projects as a center-left party that it is, PLDM has, in fact, only one asset: the European one, including the significant contribution to visa liberalization and the Association Agreement.

Therefore it rules out the possibility for PLDM to pull the rug out from under its feet by breaking the Coalition. And PLDM leader Vlad Filat, because he was suspected of having dark intentions regarding the current coalition, would not have had to wait for this moment to destroy it, as he had a more "favorable" opportunity more than a year ago when he was noisily removed as Prime Minister. Early parliamentary elections were then one of the logical possible outcomes of the profound crisis of the governing alliance, with good odds for them, but miserable odds for the country's European perspective. What is the logic to break its political prospects now? Over the past year, PDM has also strengthened its pro-European message, partly due to its centrist position in the EU-Customs Union/Russia equation. About PLR alone there is nothing to say, because it has only one message, the pro-European one, but has less influence on the electorate and can not afford to lose it through reckless political actions.

A conclusion and several questions

At the moment and it seems until the fall elections, there is no real danger of the Pro-European Coalition breaking up from within, and subsequently the country’s political stability is safe, which makes the election results more predictable.

Where do the signals on the Internet come from and what do they mean?

One: As previously stated, these are the positions of well-known public figures and we should be glad that they have the interest and can afford to articulate their opinions.

Two: These are the views and actions of political forces from outside or inside the current coalition. Accordingly, it is the start of a denigratory campaign, unilateral or mutual, out of political naivety, unprofessionalism or ill-will, and it is dangerous both for all the Coalition members and for the country's European perspective. The second point of view has the right to life because of a phenomenon sufficiently influential in Moldova, which led to the title of this analysis and refers to the relationship "politics - informal communication on the Internet (social networks and blogging) - the press".
Three: The explanation can be found in a phenomenon that we can conventionally call “the politicization of netizenship (and blogging)” or the “blogging of politics”, or even “the accretion of blogging and politics”. This equation leaves out the traditional press, which we might say that is pushed into the off-shore of communication, where there are different rules and responsibilities.

Evidence for social judgement and perception

It has long been said that some of the parties and politicians have recruited some of the netizens and bloggers, several of whom are called analysts, who provide 'communication' services to politicians . I mean writing good stuff about employers and bad stuff about their political opponents. Certainly there is no evidence of this of the kind required in court, but there is a general perception that it is so, and the public perception matters. In fact, the phenomenon itself is not necessarily bad. It would have been strange and unprofessional for politicians in the age of communication technologies to not have taken advantage of them, of the enormous opportunities offered by informal communication, including contracting services from individuals able to provide them. What's concerning is that the opaque and dishonest relationship between the two sides establishes a low level of social communication as a whole, eliminating traditional press from the process, slowly but systematically, or forcing it to accept new rules of the game, harmful to both media and society. It is a process of social communication similar to the removal of economic activity to offshore zones, where the rules and responsibilities are different than the usual ones in economy and society as a whole.

Forbidden tactics allowed

An example is any kind of messages on the Internet that use indecent, offensive remarks, sometimes directed against the person, against his or her children, spouses, parents, and that full of accusations backed by no arguments or proof. Usually, these messages are more frequent on the political segment on blogs and social networks. As mentioned above, according to the general perception, things are done on political command.

Dangerous legitimacy

And again, it still is not a reason to call for the banning of certain networks or blogs. Rather it is a call for politicians to realize the danger to society and to themselves, unless they stop contracting this kind of services and other harmful ones. Whatever the politicians say, but it is them who provide legitimacy to this value segment of the Internet by placing orders, but also through their appearance in this entourage. It has become fashionable for some political persons, including high-ranking officials to promote their messages through blogs and social networks.

On the one hand, there seems to be nothing wrong here, if they add informal communication to the official one. Often, however, they replace the second with the first, becoming inaccessible to traditional communication, including traditional media, pushing the latter to take informal messages as ones of official and public interest. On the other hand, it is also about the quality of politicians' official communication, especially of those in government who have institutional resources at hand and not just the opportunity, but also the duty to use them in order to ensure the transparency of governance.

Could Obama, Merkel or Rogozin be politicians in Moldova?

I am not aware if the US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the European Commission President, the old or the new one, have blogs or social media accounts, but I don't know any cases or only too few of them of the press quoting their statements from Facebook or blogs instead of public speeches or official sources. I know, however, that Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin does most of his politics concerning Chisinau and Moldova as a whole on social networks. Which allows all of the concerned to assert that this is not the official position of the Russian Federation. Isn't the difference in approaches between formal and informal information obvious? Is there any doubt as to which model should guide Moldovan decision-makers?

The press and “information resources”

In the context of attitudes towards formal and informal communication and the accountability of politicians for their quality, we should note that virtually every party, large or small, and almost every party leader has got himself or herself a site or a so-called "information" portal, some even more than one, all camouflaged under the status of "information resource" which eventually do nothing but compromise the concept of informing and information.

Hopefully this trick, based on deliberate confusion of the concepts of "information resource" and "press", will not last long – just until the political class matures and the public understands that the "resources" are not news at all, but a business driven by a purely partisan or any other kind of narrow interest. This is because the "resources" don't have the same official status of a press body, the same business rules, traditions and responsibilities, including heritage, in everything they do. They have no economic activity, don't sell products, with transfers adjacent to the budget, they just grind the money of those who order their information-less music. Therefore they afford to often inquire about rumors, gossip, human weaknesses etc. with which to spice up, as an element of attraction, the fulfilling of political orders, including by means of "informational political assassination". These methods attract visitors, statistics, possibly advertising money, all taken from the traditional, "cultured" press that cannot afford to fall below certain levels.

Simultaneously, the "resources" massively compromise the information consumption culture and the political culture of society. In addition to the old one, new "resources" have appeared these days that don't even show basic contact information, a telephone number, the legal address, the names of directors, not to mention the names of employers and editorial policy. It is expected that the political "rain" will continue and "information mushrooms" will continue to spring up as the elections near. Sometimes they reach such a degree of insolence that when trying to communicate with those behind "resource", one must register, tell his or her name, phone number, email address and other personal data, while "resources" provide no information in return. Real media has long overcome these problems, sometimes formally. But competition is unfair here for the bona fide media , which either is pushed into bankruptcy, or to the "off-shore" of unprofessional and harmful politics and communication. Besides all, it is in these "resources" that a good part of the Moldovan journalistic caste is formed and "hardened in battles".

The robots may rise

Returning to the question of why did signals regarding the breaking of the Coalition appear when this is a very sensitive question for society, we could arrive to a different answer, more general than this concrete case. Political communication on blogs and social networks, just like the human-hating robots in sci-fi movies, is getting out of the employers’ control and running its own game. Some categories of netizens and analysts could prefer to choose their employers independently, possibly by loudly betraying their old ones, or even to work under several employers at once, like double agents, or, why not, build their own political projects using the information, often confidential and dangerous, provided by the old employers against themselves. Would this be a lesson for the political class?

Valeriu Vasilică, IPN