The post-electoral debates on Andrei Nastase’s victory against Ion Ceban in the mayoral elections in Chisinau municipality are very useful. They help to supplement the whole range of factors that contributed to the final result. In the June 4, 2018 debate held as part of the talk show Fabrika” on Publika TV channel, it was concluded that the result was actually predictable. Surely, the probabilistic approaches give chances to all the candidates, but the weight of these is different and is influenced by a series of factors, such as the position of the candidate from political and geopolitical viewpoints, his image as a public figure with a particular political past and moral standing, which is the candidate’s integrity, solid knowledge of subjects of a major interest for the voting public, financial, media, administrative, human and other resources owned by the candidate, concrete sociopolitical and economic context in the electoral period with decisive influences on electoral absenteeism, etc. Could the election outcome be predicted through the angle of all these factors?
Let’s analyze things in detail. The mayor of the capital city Chisinau has been elected by direct vote since 1999. Six electoral exercises have been held since then, the recent one being the seventh. Five of the electoral exercises were won by national center-right , pro-European candidates. The candidate of the pro-Eurasian left won only in the new elections of 2005, but those elections weren’t validated owing to the low voter turnout. That’s why the candidate of the Party of Socialists Ion Ceban made considerable effort to detach himself from political and geopolitical factors in the electoral competition. On the other hand, the candidate of the Party “Platform Dignity and Truth” Andrei Nastase displayed the support of the European People’s Party, made a tour of Romanian cities to show what support he enjoys and on what he can count. In the same connection, the Socialists invoked the fact that the territorial-administrative reform of 1998 disadvantaged them as 19 mainly rural localities were attached to Chisinau municipality for consolidating the national, pro-European electoral segment. The conclusion is that a pro-European candidate of the right usually wins against a pro-Eurasian candidate of the left if the voter turnout is relatively high, of at least ~35%. So, the first factor was presumably more favorable to Andre Nastase.
The second factor, concerning the image, was intensely exploited by both of the candidates. Even if the two had integrity certificates, the mutual attacks centering on their integrity were many in number. Ion Ceban was reminded of his Communist past, the “betrayal” of the party that promoted him on the political path, the Party of Communists, and the aggressive behavior in the public space, in the meetings of the municipal council, deliberate dissemination of lies for political profit in the case of the “30,000 Syrians” who were allegedly to be brought to Moldova based on the EU – Moldova Association Agreement and an understanding between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and candidate for President of Moldova Maia Sandu. On the other hand, Andrei Nastase was blamed for dubious relations with businessmen who were convicted in Moldova eight years ago and who were offered asylum in Germany and for illegal privatization acts that involved persons close to him. It is hard to say who suffered the most from this factor. That’s why the image competition remained most probably undecided.
The third factor, concerning knowledge of the pressing problems of the municipality, was evidently in favor of Ion Ceban. However, the knowing in detail and mastering of the municipal issues made Ion Ceban have a provoking behavior towards his rival and this damaged his imagine somehow.
The fourth factor, related to the financial, media and human resources, was also in favor of Ion Ceban, who spent about 7 times more money in the election campaign than Andrei Nastase. According to the monitoring reports centering on the conduct of the media, two giant media holdings affiliated to the Democratic Party and the Party of Socialists seriously disfavored Andrei Nastase, polishing yet the image or showing indulgence towards Ion Ceban. It’s true that Jurnal TV did the opposite. However, the ratio was of about 8 to 1, not speaking about the efficiency in this competition. As to the human factor, which is the team that is to come to the City Hall together with the winner, Ion Ceban was also above Andrei Nastase, who simply avoided answering the related questions.
The fifth factor, referring to the context, was rather in favor of Andrei Nastase, who enjoyed the declared support of ten pro-European and unionist parties. Ion Ceban, on the contrary, was undermined by another two pro-Eurasian parties, the Party of Communists and Our Party, for the “betrayals” committed by the Party of Socialists that he represented in relation to the two parties and for the specific, veiled cooperation with the ruling Democratic Party as part of the so called “binom” or duo. So, the five invoked factors favored the candidates in a balanced way, but their final weight was yet different. Namely this thing shows that the election outcome wasn’t predictable.
IPN experts
