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| Veaceslav Craciun | |
The process of registering a new political force - the Gagauz-Bulgarian People’s Party “Bugeac” - was announced in the Autonomous Territorial Unit (ATU) of Gagauzia. “Judging by the previous experience of parties with a regional agenda, the attempts of these parties to strengthen their positions at the level of national politics were unsuccessful, to put it mildly. This does not yet discourage the ambitious plans of the initiators of the new party to unite all the inhabitants of southern Moldova. Its electoral prospects and goals will become clear in possible snap legislative elections.
Party of the South
Ex-Democratic MP Nicolae Dudoglo first spoke about the necessity of creating a new “Gagauz party” this April. “I call on all the Gagauz people, on all our politicians to unite. The creation of a Gagauz party is the next step,” Dudoglo stated in a meeting of his supporters.
One month later, on May 19, this idea took shape at the congress of the public organization “Devlet” (“state” – translator’s note) headed by Dudoglo. The name of the new party - Gagauz-Bulgarian People’s Party “Bugeac” – was formulated in the event. Moreover, it was announced the constitution of an organizational committee that will collect signatures from inhabitants and will deal with other procedures for registering the new political force. The committee will be managed by the chairman of the observers committee of the public tele-radio company of Gagauzia (RTG) Igor Ianac. Among the other initiators are the former mayor of Taraclia Vasile Gaidarji and Comrat municipal councilor Stepan Cara.
The new party’s name reveals the initiators of “Bugeac” aim to recruit the main supporters in the ATU and in Taraclia district. They also try to combine the national boundaries they set themselves with regional internationalism.
“We aim to integrate the main ethnic groups that populate southern Moldova into the bodies of power. Defending the national interests is our basic idea,” Igor Ianac stated on RTG.
Stepan Cara also tried to lay emphasis on the regional identity of the potential supporters. “We must unite the residents under a common flag, not of a party, but of our people and of southern Moldova,” he said.
Trap of ethnic boundaries
Despite the ambiguity of the political message of the new party, the common pathos of this project is evident: Gagauzia and Taraclia need a political force that would promote the region’s interests as the current parties “from Chisinau”, making use of the local voters, do not want or are not able to appropriately deal with this task.
If so, this idea can attract sufficient supporters in the southern region of Moldova. It happened so in the case of the Party of Regions of Moldova that was founded by ex-governor Mihail Formuzal. The largest part of the members of this party were from Gagauzia when this was registered. Unlike “Bugeac”, this party managed to formulate a clearer doctrine from the start and this enabled the party to avoid the narrow ethnic framework.
The promotion of the regional elites within the central government and financial decentralization centered on the protection of the rights of national minorities, the friendship with Russia and other components of the Moldovan left centrism made the program of the Party of Regions become, theoretically speaking, as attractive to the inhabitants of Comrat and Taraclia as to those of the districts of Dondușeni and Briceni. In this regard, the new party will be definitely labeled a “Gagauz project” that will determine its electoral limit. All the rest is subject to pure arithmetic.
Arithmetic of fantasies
What are the chances of a party like “Bugeac” at an emergent stage to enter Parliament when the election threshold is 6%? Given the total number of voters and the voter turnout at several previous parliamentary elections, 1% is equal to 15,000 voters. According to the national register of voters, there are about 165,000 voters in Gagauzia and in Taraclia district. At the parliamentary elections of 2014 and 2019, approximately 82,000 and 78,000 people, respectively, voted there.
This mean that to get the necessary 6%, “Bugeac” should first of all stimulate the regional activism of the voters and bring at least 90,000 people to polling stations and secondly, should persuade them to ignore the other parties and vote unanimously for it. This is a work of fantasy.
We will see in elections
The plans of the initiators of “Bugeac” will become very topical if snap parliamentary elections are held. According to Igor Ianac, the organizational committee is to finish the registration of the party by August 1. Besides the constitution formalities, it will be very hard for the new party to meet the legal requirements concerning the existence of representative offices in at least 18 districts, with at least 120 representatives at each office, while the party should have at least 4,000 members. This obstacle could be yet overcome. It is known that the given problem in Moldovan politics is often solved by buying parties in a state of political anabiosis that are later rebranded and have their leadership reelected.
What goal a party that is a priori a loser can pursue? We will see at the elections. The current favorites of the Gagauz-Bulgarian voters in the person of the Socialists will most probably perceive “Bugeac” as a spoiler whose goal is to attract a part of the voters in southern Moldova. For its part, “Bugeac” will make effort to persuade the people that things stand differently.
IPN publishes in the Op-Ed rubric opinion pieces submitted by authors not affiliated with our editorial board. The opinions expressed in these articles do not necessarily coincide with the opinions of our editorial board.