In the current election campaign, at least seven of the eight candidate for President presented electoral programs that would match more a semi-presidential or presidential republic. The two candidates who reached the runoff, PAS candidate Maia Sandu and independent candidate Igor Dodon, who is supported by the Party of Socialists, from this viewpoint do not differ much. In the case of both of the candidates, many of their electoral promises do not match the status of President in a parliamentary republic, shows an analysis made by the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT within the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections.
“The big question is why they make such promises. The answer can be found in candidates’ electoral platforms and positions. For example, Igor Dodon says that during his tenure of President, he turned from a politician into a political man or even statesman who now understands better what should be done. On the other hand, candidate Maia Sandu says something similar: that if she wins office she aims to become a national leader with a very complex program that covers practically all the aspects of the sociopolitical and economic life in the Republic of Moldova and, respectively, this program should be somehow assimilated by the Parliament, Government and so on so that this program becomes national, while the state institutions turn into a kind of aspirators of the President’s ideas for implementing these,” ADEPT executive director Igor Boţan stated in a news conference at IPN.
Analyzing the level of fulfillment of the electoral promises made in the electoral campaign of 2016, Igor Boţan said the incumbent President didn’t deliver on 21 promises. He fulfilled four promises, partially fulfilled eight promises and is fulfilling another promise. “Of the 34 electoral promises made by President Igor Dodon in the presidential elections of 2016, more than half weren’t delivered, including things that weren’t within the President’s remit or went beyond the constitutional and legal powers of a President in a parliamentary republic,” stated the ADEPT director.
The four delivered promises are: 1. To reject the new Audiovisual Code, the provisions that ban the broadcasting of Russian TV programs and to adjust this so as to ensure observance of the constitutional principles concerning the freedom of expression and information (President refused to promulgate the Code, ADEPT); 2. To keep the visa-free regime for Moldovans in the EU and the CIS (nothing was to be done to deliver this promise, ADEPT); 3. To raise pensions two times a year (there was adopted the law to amend legal acts to index pensions two times a year, ADEPT); 4. Not to allow pressure on the part of the authorities on the Church and offending faithful people’s religious feelings (the President didn’t have to intervene to defend the Church and religious feelings as no public authority aimed to do this, ADEPT).
According to the analysis, of the 156 promises made by the PAS candidate Maia Sandu, only 81 are compliant, 24 are partially compliant, while 51 are noncompliant. In the case of independent candidate Igor Dodon, who is supported by the Party of Socialists, of the 109 promises, 22 are compliant, 10 are partially compliant, whereas 77 are noncompliant.
