Victories with a Strong Taste of Defeat

Sergiu CEBAN

Maia Sandu has won the first round of the presidential election, and in the referendum which she had initiated, more than half of the citizens voted “FOR” Moldova’s European course. Yet, there are nuances

Well, the long-awaited presidential election took place yesterday, the results of which will be analyzed for a long time to come, as our people, as always, can puzzle. As you can see, none of the predictions even came close to the results of yesterday’s voting.  It is not surprising that all day long the representatives of the ruling elite and its entourage looked suspiciously confident, but as soon as the CEC displayed the process of counting the ballots, they faced an unexpectedly harsh and discouraging reality. One of the key factors that predetermined the final outcome was, of course, the turnout, especially abroad. Both the authorities and the opposition did a fairly good job, managing to attract more than half of the citizens registered in the voter database to the elections. Nevertheless, it was the diaspora that had the “golden share”, which both made the number of votes for the incumbent president much more solid and, in fact, saved the referendum from an ignominious failure. Preliminary data say, Maia Sandu has gained about 42%, while her closest rival, Alexandr Stoianoglo, is second with about 26% (internally, the ratio is 36% against 29%). During a quick overnight briefing, Sandu told the press about the reports of an attempt to buy/bribe 300,000 voters and that certain decisions would follow. If they do not concern Stoianoglo, he will be the one who will fight Sandu for office in the second round, scheduled for November 3. Given the scale of the resources involved, Maia Sandu’s result seems to be very good and promising the victory in the second round. But, as they say, there are nuances, but more on that later. At first glance, it may seem that she has significantly improved her performance compared to 2020, but there was no visible joy on the face of Sandu or her team. Probably, they were counting on winning in the first round, since mobilizing another 10% of the electorate in a fortnight, given the questionable outcome of the referendum, is a very difficult task, if not impossible. Alexandr Stoianoglo unexpectedly performed very well. None of the sociological services predicted such a high percentage for him. Most likely, the undecided voters, whose number was approaching 20% before the elections, decided the outcome of the vote in favor of the former Prosecutor General. Consequently, at least half of them supported the former Prosecutor General. Given all reservations, the Socialist candidate now has a solid position, and in theory about 30% of the votes distributed among the other opposition candidates. This provides him grounds to expect certain chances in the second round. And now about the referendum, which swung in favor of “YES” only in the nick of time. It was, by and large, the heart and main stake of this electoral campaign. Maia Sandu had to build on it in order to reach 50% of the votes in the first round or at least in the second round. Formally, the plebiscite seems to be valid, and the Constitution will surely be amended. With one caveat – the legitimacy of this process is now rather doubtful, especially for future political regimes. It is safe to say that domestically the referendum was a complete failure. With the exception of some regions and Chisinau, citizens opposed the amendments to the basic law. And the fact that the diaspora had a different opinion on this issue, which eventually turned out to be decisive, testifies to the great differences with those who live in Moldova in their attitude towards the state and the attempts of a certain group of politicians to limit the sovereignty of the country for electoral purposes. We can blame the Kremlin for everything, but in fact this does not remove the responsibility of the current authorities, who exploited not only administrative resources, but also the entire arsenal of both legal and illegal tools to attain the desired result. And still the victory was unconvincing and against the expectations, judging by the angry statements of Maia Sandu’s supporters, as well as by the headlines in the Western press. Now, the preliminary conclusions. The main one is that even with the validation of the referendum, the blow to the European idea is very serious. Voters living not in comfortable European cities, but in the empty villages of Moldova voted in the most pragmatic way. The European Union itself was also in an awkward position, which demonstrated wide openness through European officials and countless visits, but in return received a somewhat impolite gesture from our citizens. The authorities initially ran a great risk of embarrassing the European integration project, and they “succeeded”. Another “important achievement” of the current political regime clearly manifested by the results of the first round, is an even deeper split in our society. Now it is a pronounced geopolitical split, which previously was reflected only in sociological polls. A characteristic example is the voting in Chisinau, which essentially has become a state within a state, which houses most of the resources, and where people and politicians live in their own world, different from the rest of the country. But the fate of the state is still determined by the population as a whole. The next conclusion is that despite the total cleansing of the political field, people have a steady demand for alternative political forces and new leaders. Judging by the votes cast for the other presidential candidates, a significant proportion of our fellow citizens are virtually unrepresented in the power structure. Alas, our political field still lacks the force that could unite the Moldovan society around unifying ideas. Nevertheless, the result of the referendum and the “yellow card” of PAS together with Sandu opens the way to a richer diversity in the future parliament. Just based on the results of the first round, it’s safe to say that the next legislative body will look completely different. The PSRM rating and the prospects of the leftist forces depend on the result of Alexandr Stoianoglo. Irina Vlah, Victoria Furtuna and Vasile Tarlev have a significant chance of entering the new parliament, which may interest the centrist electorate. At the same time, the candidate of the Together bloc did not gain even 1% in the first round, and the potential party leader Nicu Popescu failed to fulfil the main task, which together indicate the futility of launching new pro-European projects. As they say, looking at the voting so different from all the predictions, the people turned out to be the wisest of all. The main message, as it seems to us, which the voters decided to convey to the current government, is that they do not oppose the European Union. And 130 thousand more votes for Maia Sandu (compared to the first round of 2020) is a vivid confirmation of that. But at the same time, people firmly stopped the attempt of the authorities and Sandu to manipulate the European integration and evade responsibility for the 4-year mandate. Citizens signaled their desire to first understand what the accession to the EU will mean in reality. Yet, they will come to know this only after the negotiations are over, when a true union treaty, rather than an obscure foreign policy idea, will be put to a referendum.