After the presidential elections, the citizens witnessed particular electoral unity of the right, but this may be lower than 50% in Parliament today. Therefore, the PAS wanted snap parliamentary elections to be held as swiftly as possible so as to make use of that wave of enthusiasm that appeared after the presidential elections, political analyst Cornel Ciurea stated in IPN’s public debate “Particularities of election campaign 2021: traditions and new tendencies”.
According to Cornel Ciurea, what is specific for the current election campaign is that the parties of the center, after Vlad Plahotniuc left, became the third player by importance. “There are at least two populist parties on the center that will play a role and that will probably enter Parliament. The classical polarization, including the geopolitics on the left, was restored: the Socialists and the Communists – pro-East, while the PAS – pro-European, pro-West. This clear polarization is a return to the previous situation, witnessed after Vlad Plahotniuc’s PDM lost the battle in 2019. The return to the geopolitical message that is exploited now by the Socialists and the Communists is something of a novelty. Until now the left and the right camouflaged the geopolitical message,” he stated.
According to the political analyst, another novelty is the fact that some of the political parties intend to use the electoral space that does not belong to them. “On the left, the Bloc of the Communists and the Socialists does not intend to attract the voters of the right on their side. Their goal is to maximally mobilize the own voters. The PAS in the campaign prior to the presidential elections saw that it has particular chances to play on the left or on the center, to attract unionists and therefore has somehow neutral political speeches, which cannot anger the voters,” said Cornel Ciurea, noting the populist parties and the Civic Congress, on the left, do not take these barriers into account and try to attract voters from the left and from the right.
In another development, the political analyst said the lists of candidates can be analyzed from the viewpoints of professionalism and of the money in politics. It’s clear that toxic MPs will continue to be present in the next Parliament, but they also play a particular positive role in Moldovan politics, showing that politics is different and the people vote for such politicians.
The parties, regardless of their ideologies, align themselves with voters’ expectations somehow. Cornel Ciurea said he identifies three types of electoral behavior. “The left applies the traditionalist behavior that involves particular standard electoral behavior and Soviet voting, while the right has a rather liberal behavior that implies individualist – the people who went abroad and learned to cope by themselves, have particular expectations and teach lessons as in the West bring values that are not known by the voters. There is also crass populism typical of particular parties that speak about the clientele principle. The electors vote according to the direct advantages that they obtain from these parties,” stated the political analyst.
The public debate “Particularities of election campaign 2021: traditions and new tendencies” is the 187th installment of IPN’s project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
