The 15th debate held on March 26 featured representatives of prominent civil society organizations that have a great say in different matters, including in periods of difficulty or crisis. The speakers included Iuliana Cantaragiu, expert of the National Environmental Center, chairperson of the National NGOs Council; Ion Dron, chairperson of the Center for Monitoring Public Authorities; Pavel Postică, program director at Promo-LEX; and Eduard Mihalaş, chairperson of the National Youth Council. Formally, all the speakers named above are also experts in their fields of interest, so the Project's permanent expert Igor Boţan, the director of the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT, enjoyed competent opinion support in analyzing the subject from a theoretical as well as practical point of view.
In particular, Igor Boţan noted that the civil society representatives attending can invite other organizations to join them in disseminating the message that they no longer tolerate the political crisis created after the Government collapsed. “These organizations can constitute a major force in Moldova. This message can reach the mass media and the people, the ambassadors and the foreign partners. The role of civil society is important. The leaders of the ruling alliance profane Moldova’s strategic goal – the European integration. This goal cannot be promoted as until now”, said the expert.
Eduard Mihalas, chairman of the National Youth Council, believes that the parties in Moldova do not know what government is. He said that the politicians, when they come to power, consider that they must share out all the posts. “PThe pressure exerted by the people is weak or there is no such pressure. The people believe that this crisis is the responsibility of the politicians. Not even the party members become involved. The youth organizations are engaged only in election campaigns. The opposition does not give an example. They want to return to power and use the same instruments. The politicians cannot rule and are unable to consult even their own party members”.
Ion Dron, head of the Center of Initiatives and Public Authorities Monitoring, said that besides the rupture existing within the ruling alliance, there is a wide gap between the politicians and civil society. “They pursued their own goals that didn’t coincide with our interests in the end. We hoped that this young political class, compared with the Communist one, will propose something new. But their mentality does not differ much from the Communist one. They also want to control everything. We are not heard because they think that we do not realize what politics is,” said the jurist.
Iuliana Cantaragiu, expert of the public association “National Environment Center” and head of the National NGO Council, said that a crisis appears when the sides cannot come to terms. “The current crisis arose because the three ruling parties do not have a common goal. The National NGO Council called on the parties to focus on the common objective – the European integration,” she stressed, adding that Moldovan civil society is only in its infancy.
Following the last three debates, IPN produced a considerably bigger number of stories compared to last year, generating a greater penetrability of the messages expressed at these events. Both the Agency's mass media subscribers and other media organizations had the opportunity to disseminate the ideas formulated in the debates to a rather broad circle of consumers of information, thus contributing to the enhancement of the level of political culture in Moldovan society.
The Agency published 7 news reports on the debate (see the English version of www.ipn.md: on 26.03.13, “Civil society is young and politicians do not listen to it, debate” -http://www.ipn.md/en/arhiva/53263, on 27.03.13, “Head of state must driver parties into a corner, debate” -http://www.ipn.md/en/arhiva/53273, “Moldova faces an atypical crisis, opinion” - http://www.ipn.md/en/arhiva/53274, on 28.03.13 “Politicians have not yet decided whether they are rivals or associates, opinion” - http://www.ipn.md/en/arhiva/53298, on 29.03.13 “We will become integrated into EU sometime, but people will don’t know what this means, debate” - http://www.ipn.md/en/arhiva/53321, “Civil society can unite so as to be heard by political class, Igor Botan” - http://www.ipn.md/en/arhiva/53339, on 01.04.2013 “Current political leaders profane idea of Moldova’s European integration, opinion” - http://ipn.md/en/arhiva/53367.
Valeriu Vasilica, IPN director
2 April 2013