Moldova election overview

Epilogue
On April 5th the Moldovan parliamentary elections resulted in an overwhelming win for the ruling Communist party, which took the exact amount of seats necessary to deliver the next President. The OSCE’s observers gave a positive assessment to the proceedings on the election day itself, noting, however, that ‘further improvements are required to ensure an electoral process free from undue administrative interference and to increase public confidence’. They also noted the seeming partiality of the public media, and specifically the Moldova 1 channel.

 

On April 6th , a day after the elections, youth protests began in front of the parliament building. Soon they turned into a violent mass brawl, resulting in the demolishment of the lower levels of the parliament building – which had been set on fire – and the Presidential administration just across the square from it.

 

The protests continued on the next day, and today people are said to be gathering yet again. The protesters are mainly young people, who don’t seem to be organised in any sort of movement, but instead are communicating and setting times and dates for meetings via the internet. In fact neither the opposition nor the ruling Communist party seems to be able to control them. As a result of the April 7th riots, 118 people were reported to have been arrested.

 

President Voronin is refusing to give in to any demands of recounts or new elections. He has blamed Romania for masterminding the ‘attempted coup d’etat’ and declared the Romanian ambassador to Moldova a persona non grata in his country.

 

Opposition leaders, in turn, have denied having anything to do with the violence, and accused the Communists of sending provocateurs into the crowds to influence what had started as peaceful protests. Vlad Filat, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats, told Reuters that authorities had "broken off the agreement we reached with Voronin," reportedly over allowing opposition access to voter lists.

 

Today, opposition party leaders planned a meeting to discuss the situation. As I was told by Secretary General of the Democratic Party of Moldova Oleg Tulea, it is very hard to predict what will happen next. As of now, the city of Chisinau is blocked by security forces, and the police are trying to stop the protests. Will the rage of the unsatisfied youth recede or will it only grow in the face of the government’s apparent inability to engage in a constructive dialogue? Whichever happens next it is clearly a message to the Communist power that a large segment of Moldova’s population has had enough.

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The entire election day was marked by restlessness and excited nervousness at the head office of the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM). My day began with following Oleg Tulea (Secretary General) and Liviu Oboroc (International Secretary) to the nearest polling station to cast their votes. Quite unusually for me, but quite normally for the post-Soviet countries, the polling station greeted us with loud, up-beat music blaring from large speakers at the entrance, and two large Moldovan flags, all adding to a sense of importance. Inside, under some surprised looks of the election commission members and observers, I documented (i.e. photographed) every moment of the voting. As we left the polling station we saw a battalion of soldiers waiting to enter. As I heard later, many of them would have probably heard their superiors’ encouragement: ‘remember who feeds and clothes you when you cast your vote’. 

 

Back at the office, hours of waiting and musing followed. Every hour on the hour the staff present at the office would gather around a TV set to watch the latest news report, which didn’t bring much news except that the first results were expected sometime after 21:00. That’s when the polling stations would close and exit poll results would be available. Some party members joked that they had a bottle of vodka and a bottle of champagne in their office: the outcome would decide which to open.

 

Finally, after hours of waiting and innumerable cigarettes smoked, the party’s staff gathered in a room with a TV set and enough space for everyone. A couple of minutes after nine, the now familiar tune of the special bulletin came on, and the presenter went straight to a reporter at the Central Election Commission: it was time for the exit polls. The results left everyone dumbstruck: the Communist party had garnered 45% of the vote; the other parties that had entered parliament so far were the Liberal Party (PL), Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and the liberal-oriented Moldova Noastra Alliance (MNA). People around me muttered words like ‘catastrophe’ as the screen showed the results for the PDM: 3%, with a parliament threshold of 6%. No-one had expected it to be an easy campaign, or to pass the threshold with no effort, but this was below any expectations.

 

Right away party members left to man their posts at the phones, where regional and local party offices would be phoning in their results soon. As the night progressed, however, the results trickling in didn’t show any optimistic signs. Periodically I would go along on a drive to some Chisinau polling station, where the PDM’s observers and election commission members would have some results. It seemed that the night rides were mainly a way to get out and do something. By the time I left the office to get some sleep, it was the middle of the night, and PDM’s staff had become increasingly frustrated and upset about the results of their hard work.

 

The next morning I had just enough time to get to the office to say my goodbyes, as I was leaving that afternoon. I was greeted by the same people, who had tried to get some sleep but didn’t succeed, and just went back to the office again. They called the election a wake-up call, a catastrophe, discussed what they would have to do now, and expressed disbelief at the results for the Communists. The latter had gained 61 seats in parliament, exactly the amount of seats needed to deliver the President. No-one could believe that the people had actually voted like that considering how sick everyone seemed to be over the past 8 years of Communist rule.

 

As we drove to the airport, Oleg received a phone call telling him some young people were gathering in front of the parliament’s building to protest. He would go and see what it was about after he dropped me off.

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Today, the last day before the election, was in stark contrast to yesterday. As no actions were allowed towards campaigning, members and electoral candidates of the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM) kept appearing at the head office, wondering if there was anything to be done. After months of hard work and busy schedules it was hard for them to just sit still and await tomorrow.

 

Finally, after a day of discussing election possibilities at the office, strolling around the city – mainly to show me around - and incessantly checking their phones for messages, the tiredness of the past months finally hit, and everyone dispersed for an early night in, to get some much needed sleep. After all, tomorrow night isn’t likely to bring any.

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Today I arrived in sunny Chisinau to witness the Moldovan parliamentary election with our partner, the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM). Fresh off the plane, I dived right in and was taken to the party’s head office to meet the people I’d be spending the weekend with.

 

As it turned out, according to Moldovan law, there cannot be any campaigning the day before the actual voting. As the election will be held on Sunday April 5th, it meant today was the last day in which campaigning was still allowed. This may explain why the head office was almost deserted - save some of the party’s leadership finishing up preparations for the hustle and bustle of Sunday – as the majority was out on the streets or in regional offices putting in some last-minute effort. As we sat down to get to know each other over a ‘welcome to Moldova’-glass of Moldovan wine, I asked the PDM-ers to fill me in on the latest.

 

According to them it is becoming very hard to predict what the result of the election will be. While PDM’s regional and local offices are quite optimistic about the party’s popularity and the campaign waged (especially the slogan ‘you deserve better’ seems to be very successful), there is fear of falsifications by the ruling Communist party. In fact, only a couple of hours later, in my hotel room, I had a chance to watch what I’d heard at the PDM office on the 6 ‘o clock news. It featured an item on a press-conference organized by the PDM that very day, in which the party presented some ballots from the last elections which, they claim, were used for falsification. The extensive news item included condemnation of the falsifications by other parties/organizations as well.

 

Later in the day, we went out to one of the sites where a true election struggle could be witnessed. In a densely populated neighborhood in the northern part of Chisinau, the PDM had set up information tents and gathered about a dozen activists – all having had Alfred Mozer Stichting trainings - who had spent the entire past month disseminating leaflets. As we approached, my companions pointed out some Communist activists that had just arrived on the scene with their leaflets while some Green Party activists could be discerned a bit further down the wide boulevard. We spent the next hour or so there, while the newly arrived PDMers joined their activists in giving out leaflets, providing explanation, urging people to vote, and getting into some political discussions with local inhabitants and the Communist activists.

When most of the material had been handed out, the tents were taken down and the entire group moved on to the PDM’s Chisinau municipal office, where a celebration of the end of the campaigning period was planned. Spirits ran high as the party members celebrated into the night, the unpredictability of the election forgotten for the moment in a wave of optimism and satisfaction over all the hard work. Will the hard-fought campaign pay off? Only one way to find out. Stay tuned.

 

Sources: OSCE, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty