In general, the promises made for the first 100 days by the PAS government were mainly fulfilled. “Even if the results are not exceptional, they leave room for optimism about the current government’s capacity to cope,” expert Igor Boțan stated in IPN’s public debate ‘Indulgence offered to the government expires. 100 days of rule in government’s, opposition‘s and society’s view”.
According to him, the current government’s actions should be regarded through the angle of the ruling party’s position: “You can criticize us, but we have the people’s mandate. We act as we promised to the citizens who mandated us”. Their golden formula is: “You are right when you criticize us, but the conditions in our country are not the normal ones. As the conditions are distorted, we undertook first to clean up, which is to root out corruption,” stated Igor Boțan, noting the people are not yet sure that the government will succeed.
The expert said the first serious crisis, the gas one, was successfully solved by PAS owing primarily to the international support enjoyed by the current government and to the maneuvers made by the government, including the use of alternative sources and the attraction of EU support, which had an impact on the compromise formula agreed by Gazprom and Moldovagas.
Igor Boțan noted the actions taken by the government to contain the pandemic are adequate. “We are on the crest of a new wave. One fourth of the daily cases are recorded in Transnistria, whose population represents about 12% of the total population. Its contribution of almost one fourth to the daily number of cases shows that the infection rate in Transnistria is two times higher than in the territory that is under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Moldova,” explained the expert. He said the Ministry of Health can be yet reproached for the presentation of inaccurate daily statistics.
“Things started to change dramatically in August and in the first half of September, when a large part of the citizens travelled abroad and we saw how many cases were imported. The coming of this fourth wave was a natural phenomenon. Furthermore, we must admit that the law enforcement agencies annihilated late the opening through which infected people got into the Republic of Moldova, owing to corruption in the Border Police,” said Igor Boțan. “If we speak about the pandemic, we must say that the situation is serious, but is kept under control.”
As to the energetic actions taken in the justice sector, the expert said the end result of these actions is not yet known and we cannot be sure that they will be positive and things here remain in suspense.
As to the rise in incomes, Igor Boțan said the government delivered its promise as regards the higher pensions. The prices rose significantly, but this is not the blame of the government. It is a global crisis and the prices of oil and gas rose everywhere.
“The restoration of the relations with the international partners is the biggest result achieved by the PAS government and this is felt,” stated the expert.
The public debate “Indulgence offered to the government expires. 100 days of rule in government’s, opposition‘s and society’s view” was the 211st installment of the series of debates held as part of the project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates’ that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
