Parliamentary elections will take place in Moldova in a year, in a special context, given the new electoral system that molded the party system. “It is very important to understand that the new electoral system, its uninominal part, is a very subtle and sensitive issue. Things change dramatically because the uninominal majority system is the system of lost votes, while the proportional voting system is an honest one,” director of the Association for Participatory Democracy (ADEPT) Igor Botan stated in the public debate “Starting position of political parties and potential independent candidates on alternative pro-European platform before the electoral year”, which was staged by IPN News Agency.
Igor Botan, who is the standing expert of IPN’s project, said that during over 25 years the political parties had been shaped by the proportional representation system. Now that the rules of the game are changed and new requirements are introduced for political parties, we should anticipate things and see how we can have competitive, free and fair elections. “In the case of presidential elections and the crisis generated by the theft of the US$ 1 billion, we had this electoral competition that set the defining lines for the next parliamentary election campaign. It will be about the alternative, pro-European dimension that challenges that of the government. We have the unionist course, which is robust and is supported by a number of parties, and the Eurasian course. Given that the uninominal voting system is the system of lost votes, we must see how the parties design their strategies so that the citizens do not feel disappointed and the political forces are dissatisfied with the way in which things were organized,” stated Igor Botan.
The expert said we will see how the political forces make the people understand their offer and how they will cooperate. Things are very subtle and it is wrong to reveal all the details at once. The citizens should know that work is done on all the segments and the particularities of Moldova are taken into account.
“We know that in Moldova, the parties that are powerful have a slogan with which they enter the election campaign immediately after they win the elections and never stop to invent slogans because this has a cumulative effect and shows the trajectory of the political forces. The electoral legislation clearly delimits the election campaign and the political campaign. Any party can launch a political campaign and the people can support a particular idea. The campaign to amend the electoral system and the anti-campaign were political campaigns led by political parties and it is very important here to say that the civil society organizations had a say. When an electoral system is changed and a system that affects the proportionality of the vote is preferred and this electoral system is called the system of lost votes, it is normal for those from civil society to state their viewpoint,” noted the ADEPT director.
He also said that the parliamentary elections could take place between December 1, 2018 and March 1, 2019 and the parties, as election runners, and the independent candidates should be different, if they do not come under the same umbrella. In some constituencies, a group could support some of the valued independent candidates who do not want to associate themselves with parties for particular reasons. In such a situation, the common messages should be avoided.
Igor Botan said the center-right bloc announced recently by the PAS and PPPDA has a good side as these parties and eventually the PLDM look at things in the same way, but all the subtleties should be first disused and then made public.
The public debate “Starting position of political parties and potential independent candidates on alternative pro-European platform before the electoral year” is the 81st installment of the series of debates “Developing political culture by public debates” that are organized with support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.
The next debate entitled “Starting position of political parties and potential independent before the electoral year” will take place in the conference hall of IPN News Agency on November 24, starting at 2pm. This will involve representatives of the unionist dimension of the political landscape.