Farmers gather the harvest in autumn, while politicians sum up the results of their fruitful activity at the start of the new political season. This autumn is a pre-electoral one and they should thus analyze the results of the entire legislature of 2014-2018. The leader of the Liberal Party (PL) Mihai Ghimpu was the first to raise the issue and tell us what the party he has led for 20 years managed to do. In the program “Truth Live”, Mihai Ghimpu had to tell a truth and he did it: “The date of the parliamentary elections was set for February 24, 2019 so as to enable the Democratic leader Vladimir Plahotniuc to solve the problems he could not deal with while the mayoralty in Chișinău was held by Dorin Chirtoacă.”
From the perspective of the experience of the Liberal leader, this hypothesis seems likely. The first deputy president of the PL Dorin Chirtoacă managed the Chișinău City Hall for ten years, during 2007 – 2017. The PL has been in power for eight years, during 2009 – 2017. All the political and socioeconomic processes in the period bear the imprints of the party’s administration that contributed to the creation and consolidation of the current state of affairs in the Republic of Moldova. Moreover, the PL decisively contributed to the promotion of Vladimir Plahotniuc as the executive coordinator of the current government: “He is the vice president of the PD, while the Democratic Party forms part of the government coalition. The party submits proposals, not the party’s MP or minister. It is responsible for the preparation of the executive side. We are the political executive and he prepares the tendencies, the subjects that should be discussed. Everyone formulates proposals, but someone has to collect them. He is the vice president of the Democratic Party and he speaks in the name of the party.”
What should we understand from what the Liberal leader stated? First of all, we should understand that when he was supported by the PL, Vlad Plahotniuc succeeded in everything, including in becoming the executive coordinator of the government. When he wasn’t supported by the PL, he suffered failures and a proof is the fact that the first vice president of the PL Dorin Chirtoacă didn’t allow him to solve his problems – the construction of a multistory building instead of the café “Guguță” situated in central Chisinau and of a restaurant on Calea Ieșilor St. The conclusion is evident – without the experience and the support of the PL, no politician and no political force will manage to achieve their objectives.
The given conclusion refers also to the developing unionist movement. Before the parliamentary elections that were postponed for three months, the leader of the PL presented his new political desideratum: “I would like the Union to be made on December 1 and this would be the best thing that will be done by the Moldovans.” This desideratum is in harmony with the message that was to be popularized by the organizers of the Centenary March of September 1 this year. In this connection, the leader of the PL reproached the young unionists, who lack experience, for transforming the march into a protest and altercations with the police, instead of gathering together more people in the Square to demand the Union: “We weren’t to prove that we want to walk somewhere. What was important was to gather the people in the Square and shout that the union was wanted. However, as we don’t have experience, we try to show that we want to walk, that we want buses in the Square. This created some confusion and many people went home. I’m against the use of force. In fact, it was a kind of taking into one’s arms and moving to another place. They didn’t use force as they did in Germany, the U.S.”
The Liberal leader made also delicate allusions as to who is actually to blame for the transformation of the unionist march into an antigovernment protest: “Codreanu has immunity in Romania. The police officers knew very well that he was there. Some say they intentionally stopped Simeon at the frontier as he is a Romanian citizen and cannot run and they thus needed a leader here and engaged Codreanu. It was a scenario to make a victim of Codreanu and make him the unionists’ leader. We should be an example. I could stayed on Ștefan cel Mare Blvd when they arrested Chirinciuc or Chirtoacă. Now the police say one thing, they say another thing and the people do not understand and do not know what to believe”.
Surely, Mihai Ghimpu speaks out of his political experience and, if he is right, namely his absence as experience bearer was felt at the unionists’ march where at least the unionists were to be United for the Union! His excuse that he had to go on a trip that he planned earlier is an explanation that perfectly matches the previous explanations about his absence from the other marches and meetings of the unionists staged in 2010-2018. Definitely, when he was Speaker of Parliament and acting President, the leader of the PL could not take part in unionistic events as he had to vote, sign and promulgate laws. Later, as the head of the Liberal parliamentary group, he had to coordinate the group’s activity. Now that the election campaign is close to start, the meetings with voters in districts are very important. It’s a pity that such a rich experience remains unused by the unionist current and, given the tight schedule of the Liberal leader, some of the young unionists have to victimize themselves so as to be recognized as leaders.
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