Will Moldova Have a True “Alternative”?

Sergiu CEBAN

With a new electoral bloc now in place, the electoral landscape is seriously changing, posing a clear threat to the ruling PAS. Meanwhile, there are still many questions about the Alternative itself

Recently, the media field has been actively flooded with pre-election ideas of opposition politicians, which many experts saw as a kind of foreshadowing. The majority of party leaders, as it seems, have realized long ago that it is almost impossible to get into the future parliament alone. Therefore, despite all the mutual contradictions, it is necessary to join efforts to increase the chances of success. Therefore, it is not surprising that last week saw the birth of the electoral bloc Alternative, uniting three parties of Ion Ceban, Ion Chicu and Mark Tkaciuk, as well as the team of former presidential candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo. The statements made at its presentation have not yet given a clear idea of what this Alternative is about and why we need it. What exactly this rather unexpected alliance is going to offer people, apparently, will be assessed only after the publication of its election programme. So, with such a motley crew of politicians at one table, the only thing left to do was to bring their views to some common denominator. Not an easy task, given their significantly diverging positions on some key state issues. The demonstrative “oath” by Ceban to the Romanian language and condemnation of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, with which the other members of the Alternative tacitly agreed, is worthy of note. This is a strange move, especially amid the recently presented census results, where the majority of residents named “Moldovan” as their mother tongue. On the one hand, such a heterogeneous political mass looks, to put it mildly, not quite stable from the start. But on the other hand, it sometimes happens in politics, when the common task of confronting a powerful opponent, who has concentrated all the power in his hands, gathers under one banner a variety of forces, including those with polar views. Therefore, with all the nuances, Alternative should be given a chance to prove itself. Naturally, the main goal of the bloc now is to absorb the widest possible groups of supporters. Taking into account the diversity of its participants, it is potentially able to cover almost the entire center of the Moldovan political spectrum, as well as to attract a solid part of voters from the right and left flanks. The ruling regime, accompanied by the entire bloc of loyal non-governmental organizations and the media, has already started to “test” the new platform without even waiting for its full-fledged launch. Such a reaction indicates a serious fear of any consolidated projects, and even more so of the merging of parties “feeding” on different segments of the electoral field. This can also be explained by the fact that such blocs significantly reduce the number of additional mandates that PAS could get by redistributing the votes of those who failed to pass the 6% threshold. It is obvious that it is relatively quick and easy to confront each of the opposition members if they act alone, as there are plenty of tools for this: from information and propaganda suppression to exclusion from the electoral race. It will be much more difficult to deal with larger associations, which have the potential and virtually all the necessary base of political formation at the republican level. Noteworthy, other prominent members of the opposition, such as Igor Dodon or Irina Vlah, haven’t joined Alternative. Although, as the experience of the presidential elections shows, Moscow is able to persuade the same socialists to rally around one leader. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that some of the Alternative’s members decided to play amateur and not listen to the Kremlin’s recommendations. Or the newborn bloc may well be backed by well-known solvent persons who are counting on political revenge. Probably, having information about the plans of the new inter-party group to make itself known, Igor Dodon called everyone under his banner in advance, which rather resembled a desperate remedy. No one has considered the Socialists and Dodon as the leader of the opposition for a long time, primarily because of his inability to work jointly. This is confirmed by the total cleansing of the left flank from potential PSRM competitors. Realizing that Alternative could challenge not only the ruling party, but also the Socialists, Dodon immediately flew to Moscow - not to meet Patriarch Kirill, of course, but for additional clarifications. Although the fact that Stoianoglo got involved in another political project with a very specific design, in a way, allays Dodon’s fears about his possible ouster as the “first” among the leftist forces. Be that as it may, the alternative bloc has become a reality to be reckoned with. Meanwhile, even at the first glance, one cannot help feeling that the electoral product offered to us is somewhat unnatural. Even an inexperienced observer could notice the poorly concealed stiffness of Alexandr Stoianoglo, who obviously felt himself surrounded by far from those politicians, whose team he wanted to be a part of. Alas, winning the elections in the country has not yet added to his experience and ability to convert his rating into personal political capital. Most likely, the people gathered around Stoianoglo consider him as an electoral donor and will try to exploit him both as a battering ram against the incumbent authorities and to guarantee entry into parliament, which neither PDCM (Ion Chicu) nor Civic Congress (Mark Tkaciuk) can do outside of Alternative. Who exactly convinced Stoianoglo to back up this political project is hard to say yet. But I will assume that it is former PCRM ideologist Mark Tcaciuk, given their former party past. In a mature political system, in fact, it is possible to assume that a group of politicians sacrificed their personal ambitions for the sake of a common goal - the well-being of citizens and a bright future for the whole country. But, unfortunately, in the Moldovan reality such a probability tends to zero. In our case, as usual, the decisive role could be played by an external factor, i.e. someone from the influential players. And if we exclude Moscow from this equation, we are left with only Brussels and Bucharest. The next polls will show whether this political venture has aroused any increased interest among citizens. But getting into the same boat as your ideological opponents is only half the battle. It is much more difficult to convince people with radically different beliefs to vote for a bloc that does not yet have a clear political doctrine. The elections are still at least six months away, and its co-founders will have to go through a lot of tests to stay together in the face of existing contradictions. For this reason, it is not yet certain that Alternative will be able to get back on its feet very quickly and evolve into a real opponent for the ruling PAS.