About one in four politicians sitting in the current legislature defected at least once his or her party after becoming an MP, even if twelve of them had formally pledged not to do exactly this, according to a study presented today by the 2019 Clean Parliament Initiative.
Commenting on the issue of integrity in politics, the political analyst Igor Boțan noted that when someone joins a party with a certain doctrine, voters expect that person to act in a certain manner. In Moldova however the phenomenon of party switching, even if this often means joining a party with an entirely different doctrine, is common, meaning that politicians are not stable in embracing a certain set of values.
The study claims that 28 MPs don’t meet integrity criteria for occupying a public office, while a half meet such criteria for the most part. Petru Macovei, director of the Independent Press Association, said the study looked at how the MPs promoted values like meritocracy and transparency, how they observed human rights, and whether they have been involved in alleged dishonest activity such embezzlement of public money or promotion of suspicious bills.
Cornelia Cozonac, president of the Investigative Journalism Center, said the study also looked at the MPs’ declarations of assets and interests. “Dignitaries often seem to forget to declare bank accounts full of money, even tens of them. They forget to declare properties, which are instead registered in the names of their wives, relatives, friends, lovers, and which the National Integrity Authority fails to properly document, claiming that it lacks the powers to document or prove that the properties and cars used by public officials are actually owned by them”. Cozonac also said that many integrity cases are killed off for “lack of intent”.