Even if the quality of governance in Moldova is identical or even inferior to that in Georgia, the Moldovan citizens are more reserved in initiating social protests, political pundit Dionis Cenusa says in an analysis article for IPN Agency.
The politologist notes that the replacement of the proportional representation system with the mixed electoral system, outside any general consensus between the political forces and in society and by ignoring the recommendations of the European partners, was the key reason for the protests in 2017.
The most significant social protests that covered the negotiations between the citizens and the authorities were those determined by the storage of waste in Tantareni.
According to the expert, the main nonpolitical players that react to the government’s abuses are represented by nongovernmental organizations whose functioning main depends on foreign funding.
On the one hand, this offers limited instruments of influencing the government. If the concerns expressed by civil society had been neglected by the EU and other foreign partners, the government would have ignored these fully.
On the other hand, the cumulative pressure exerted by civil society and the European institutions, even if it can influence the behavior of the government (case of attempt to decriminalize economic crimes), has also side effects, such as the disregarding by the citizens of the active citizenship instincts that are visible in the case of the Georgians.
Dionis Cenusa enumerates three key motives that contribute to the keeping of a low level of civil activism among the Moldovans, in other cases than the political protests.
First of all, there is a growing migration tendency among the population, both for an indefinite period of time and for good. When the migration becomes an alternative, the necessity and stimulus to react and to prevent the unfavorable (in)action of the authorities disappears.
Secondly, the Moldovans’ passivity derives from the relatively cheap and fast possibility of obtaining passports from European countries (Romania, Bulgaria). This not only facilitates migration, but also creates an alternative agenda for Moldovans.
The third major aspect is the absence of earlier, positive and own experience. Unlike the Georgians, who have the Rose Revolution behind, with more social protests and with clear concessions on the part of the government, the Moldovans have the protests of April 2009 that ended with the intimidation and persecution of protesters and very few actions to rehabilitate the persecuted victims.
The conditionality used by the EU is beneficial for transforming the country, but should no way substitute Moldovan society’s internal collective capacity to improve by itself the relations between the state and the citizens, concluded the political pundit.
