Electoral Fight in the Republic of Moldova

A latest poll shows that the Communist Party, now in opposition, after having ruled the country at its own will between 2001 and 2009, would get 35% of the votes. Coming next are three of the parties in the current pro-western governing coalition: the Liberal Democrats with 28%, the Democrats with 18% and the Liberals with 12%.

The other party in the coalition, the ”Our Moldova” Alliance, stands below the electoral threshold with only 4%, but Radio Romania’s correspondent says that the alliance is within the margin of error, which means that it might get into the future Parliament.

However, major incertitude hovers over the Democratic Party, which used to be an insignificant presence on the political scene. Taken over last year by the former Communist speaker of Parliament, Marian Lupu, who played the dissidence card against the pure and tough Bolshevism promoted by the impenitent President Vladimir Voronin, the Democratic Party has now become the arbiter of the future governance.

Although they pledged to cooperate with the Liberal Democratic and Liberal parties in their effort to integrate Moldova into the European Union, the ex-Communists in the Democratic Party have never hidden their fascination for Russia and their idiosyncrasies towards neighboring Romania.

Which makes them perfectly compatible, in a virtual government, with their former comrades that still make the Communist Party. Moreover, the Democratic Party continues to give contradictory signals which analysts find hard to decipher.

At the weekend the Democrats announced that running on their lists would be businessman Vlad Plahotniuc. The press claims Plahotniuc controls a powerful mafia-styled group of interests and that he bought the Democratic Party to serve him as a springboard for the position of PM. His ambitions make him undesirable for the acting PM, Liberal Democrat Vlad Filat, at present the most popular politician in Chisinau.

Being extremely efficient as long as he ruled the Government, Filat managed to obtain substantial loans from the IMF, the US, the EU and Romania, which saved the Moldovan economy, dried out by the international crisis and the Communists’ incompetence, from total collapse. Furthermore, together with the interim President, Liberal Mihai Ghimpu, he managed to normalize Chisinau’s relation with Bucharest marked by Voronin’s visceral phobia.

Analysts warn that all these successes risk being cancelled if Lupu and his team change sides, abandoning the pro-western coalition and giving their votes to the Communists, which would thus be within an inch of re-instating dictatorship in the Republic of Moldova.