The Party of Socialists (PSRM) didn’t announce a clear agenda for the eventual discussions with the bloc ACUM (NOW) on the formation of a coalition. The Socialists shouldn’t have initiated preliminary discussions, but should have proposed negotiations from the start. At the same time, the bloc ACUM has less experience in politics and, after rejecting the PSRM’s proposal, showed that it does not have a common position, expert in political sciences Victor Stepaniuc and jurist Sergey Mishin were quoted by IPN as saying in the talk show “Key issue” on NTV Moldova channel.
Victor Stepaniuc said a clear agenda of an eventual meeting with the bloc ACUM to discuss the formation of a coalition hasn’t been made public. “They shouldn’t have announced that they want to meet preliminarily, especially in public. (...) I think the phrase “For preliminary negotiations” cast doubt on the seriousness of the negotiations and they thus received an as ‘serious’ answer, which was rather arrogant,” he stated.
Victor Stepaniuc noted he wants to believe that the answer given by ACUM to the Socialists is not a final one. According to him, the created situation shows that if these two parties do not have will and intelligence to have negotiations on any kind of agreement, the initiative to form a parliamentary majority will automatically pass to the Democratic Party. “This is a signal for these two large opposition parties,” he said.
Jurist Sergei Mishin noted the PSRM was right to wait for the validation of the seats of MP by the Constitutional Court first. The Socialists ignored the dirty criticism that was leveled at them in the election campaign and took a correct step when they proposed preliminary discussions as the two parties this way would have been able to discuss their agendas.
According to Sergei Mishin, the bloc ACUM does not have a common opinion about an eventual coalition with the Socialists. The PSRM proposed preliminary discussions so as to also see how united the bloc is and how undivided their internal agenda is. “The bloc ACUM can separate into three groups, of the PAS, PPDA and PLDM. How one can be sure when forming a coalition with a bloc that can come to Parliament tomorrow and form three groups? That’s why clarity is needed. But the bloc refused to have this clarity,” he stated.
In a press briefing on March 11, the Party of Socialists’ secretary for ideology Ion Ceban invited the leaders of the electoral bloc ACUM DA PAS to discussions on the establishment of political parliamentary cooperation relations. The next day, the bloc’s leaders rejected the invitation, arguing all the ACUM candidates for MP before the elections signed a public commitment, promising not to form alliances with oligarchic and anti-European parties. Earlier, the bloc ACUM declared it will also not have discussions with another parliamentary party – the Democratic Party of Moldova.
