The quality of the political class in Moldovan society leaves to be desired. The political parties are not trusted by the people and this attitude is influenced by the discrepancy between words in the election campaign and post-campaign deeds, director of the Association for Participatory Democracy (ADEPT) Igor Botan, the IPN project’s standing expert, stated in the debate “Quality of the political class: importance, current state and ways of improvement” that was staged by IPN News Agency and Radio Moldova.
Igor Botan said the political class usually identifies itself with the group of people who adopt major decisions, formulate politics in this regard, work out programs and are responsible for their implementation.
“The political class consists of people who plan their activity so as to formulate policies and make us, the people, happy. It happens so because any democratic society is organized into a state and democracy is actually its institutionalized freedom. In democratic societies, there should be people who manage. That’s why we need the political class. This is a normal and necessary thing,” said the expert.
Speaking about the quality of the political class and its profoundness, Igor Botan said these can be deduced from the electoral programs of parties that are represented in the legislature and form part of the political class, while the assessment of the political class is available through opinion polls.
The expert noted that Moldova orients itself to the European area and thus gave as example the UK, where the political class, to the detriment of its interests, does things that it does not want to, but does these so as not to allow for discrepancy between deeds and words. It happened in the case of the Brexit, for example.
Igor Botan said the former Prime Minister of the UK David Cameron was the one who triggered the ‘referendum game’ to pronounce in favor of the exit from the EU, but ultimately realized the made mistake and called on the British people not to make this change, but all on vain. As a result, he resigned. The current British Prime Minister Theresa May, who was categorically against the exit from the EU, said this process will yet take place because this was the people’s wish. In this situation, it is the people who bear responsibility because they made a conscious choice.
Asked why the parties and the politicians, who are the most important component of the mechanism of influencing things in society and the state, are simultaneously are the least trusted ones according to all the polls conducted after the declaration of independence, the expert said the discrepancy between the words and the deeds of the political class are the biggest problem.
“There is the reputation law and we see how the people react to this discrepancy and how they recognize those from the political class by their deeds in opinion polls,” concluded Igor Botan.
The public debate “Quality of the political class: importance, current state and ways of improvement” was the 78th installment of the series “Developing political culture by public debates” that are organized with support from the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.
