Opinion: It’ll Be Difficult for Maia Sandu to Meet the Electorate Expectations

The presidential elections results reflected a huge public demand for internal changes but on the way to implement them, Maia Sandu is to face the almost insurmountable Moldovan political system’s resistance. Semion ALBU, RTA: The final presidential campaign results were finally summed up this week. It should be said that everything bore such pomp and scope as if we were choosing at least an autocratic monarch, not a candidate for the ceremonial post with reduced to the minimum powers. However, it is clear that these elections were not so much a cut of population’s preferences for a particular politician but it rather did reflect the huge common demand for internal changes. This is how one can interpret Sandu's huge (in Moldovan realities) almost 20% advantage over her opponent in the second round. It is by the way, to be recalled that four years ago Dodon won much modestly with an only 4% advantage. To start with, it would be nice for Maia Sandu to carefully analyze her opponent’s failure reasons, who lost 140 thousand votes during the years of his rule. Recently, the still incumbent president complained that in fact he was in power for only 11 months, and the first 2.5 years of his mandate all his initiatives were blocked by parliament. The remark is fair of course, but this did not prevent the head of state from continuing to abundantly give out promises whilst failing to fulfill them (as well as the general inconsistency of words with deeds) has ultimately sunk his rating. In addition, Dodon was often quite inaccurate in his statements, which alienated part of the population from him. He did not succeed in becoming "the president of all Moldovans". Does Maia Sandu have such a chance? Perhaps yes, albeit with reservations. The PAS leader is far from being a “blank slate” in Moldovan politics. She has already managed to be the head of one of key ministries and did really run the country during her short tenure as prime minister. It is no secret that in both cases the results of her activities were at least contradictory. At the same time, Sandu also allowed herself rather ambiguous statements that were attempted to be used against her during the past campaign. It can be seen that the politician (or her team) carried out some work on mistakes. This time, Sandu sounded a lot of conciliatory and pragmatic theses, for example about the Russian language and cooperation with Russia. It seems that this played an essential role in her final elections success and she was able to win even within the country, without taking into account the diaspora's vote. Comparing the first outlined Sandu’s steps as president with those of Dodon in 2016, it can be noted that they are drawn up in a more realistic and less categorical manner. Formulations like “I will strive”, “I will offer”, “I will insist”, etc. are quite consistent with the position that is almost devoid of real levers and tools in order to single-handedly resolve any of the issues. At the same time, it’s to be said that Sandu did not completely avoid promises that she would theoretically not be able to fulfill: my colleagues have once already cited statistics according to which almost a third of those promises turned out to be unfulfillable from the point of view of constitutional powers. In this sense, the presidency is very insidious: many citizens do not still understand the nuances of a parliamentary government form and continue to consider the head of state responsible of everything that happens in the country. Maia Sandu can be greatly assisted by an extremely favorable international environment. Contacts intensification in the western direction and with neighboring states is visible by naked eye: less than a week has passed since her election and it is already known about the upcoming Romanian President Klaus Iohannis visit to Moldova, and Sandu’s herself visit to Ukraine. In addition, the PAS leader receives signals of support and readiness for assistance (including financial) from Brussels and Bucharest. It is curious that one of the first meetings of the President-elect, which was specially announced, was with Russian Ambassador Oleg Vasnetsov. It is hardly worth expecting Sandu's close interaction with Russian officials as Dodon used to have. Moreover, Moscow has apparently changed its mind about giving the two hundred million loan. On the other hand, the Kremlin's rather sympathetic reaction to Sandu's victory may indicate that she actually has the opportunity to implement the concept of a balanced foreign policy which Dodon promoted unsuccessfully. But this is all external affairs and the population is obviously waiting for changes, first of all in domestic policy and here everything is more complicated. The Moldovan political system is too tightly entangled in various corruption schemes and unscrupulous business interests. Mastering them became the main meaning of being in power for any coalition, no matter what ideological postulates it was concealing itself with. Year after year, the stalled justice reform that Brussels has hopelessly invested tens of millions of euros in, served as a more than vivid indicator of this vicious system’s fossilization which does not want to change even under external pressure. Sandu, who has essentially declared a "crusade" against corruption, will be forced to fight without having enough powers or support in parliament and government. Moreover, even if suddenly, with the help of external players she succeeds in pushing through the idea of dissolving the legislative body and initiating early elections, this does not guarantee further success. As practice has shown, any government, even supported by all international partners can be knocked out at the right time and send the overly principled and inflexible managers to the bench. And let’s not forget about the parliament where buying deputies or seeing deputies running has become commonplace. Here parallels are to be drawn with our neighbors in Ukraine. Last year, the young and promising Volodymyr Zelensky came to power there, and he as well defeated his opponent in the second round of elections to smithereens. Subsequently, his party triumphantly won the parliamentary elections, receiving an absolute majority for the first time in the history of Ukraine. Thus, Zelensky had it all - international support, an unprecedented popular mandate and a loyal parliament and government. A year and a half later, the results were disappointing: Zelensky did not fulfill even small promises like refusal of presidential residences (by the way, there is a similar thing in the Sandu’s program), the apparatus of the head of state and the government are regularly shaken by corruption scandals and accusations of serving the interests of Ukrainian oligarchs while the “ Servant of the People”, despite the dominant status does situationally cooperate even with the political force of the odious Petro Poroshenko. As a result, Zelensky's approval rating has more than double soared this year and his party has recently suffered a crushing failure in local elections. Maia Sandu's starting conditions are even worse than those of Volodymyr Zelensky and the tasks that she set for her reign are no less ambitious. Will she cope with? There are great doubts about this so far.