President Maia Sandu (Photo: AFP/Daniel Mihailescu)
Dominik Bobrovsky
01/11/2024 22:16
The referendum's timing was selected purportedly by the current pro-European president as a possible backup for the exceeding of mandatory turnout and accumulating more pro-European voters to pinpoint that time brightly decisive stance on the issue within the Moldovan society. Despite numerous sociological polls reflecting a possible 60 per cent support for possible European integration, the final outcome of the referendum was realized to be narrower, if not even the same. Within the results arose the important question – Did Moldovans in the referendum really choose the path of European integration?
First of all, we need to evaluate the general role of the referendum in the Moldovan political system. From the legal perspective, the result of the outcome is not binding. Current governing politicians were blatantly diminishing and ignoring various opposition attempts at the referendum in the past. Results 50:50 are almost usually not qualified in any developed European country for changing the national constitution, sometimes not even deciding on the national incorporation to the international quasi-federation of states. The decisive role of the approximate 10,000 electoral votes is considered to be a really narrow number. To the general outcome of the referendum, we need to point out, that the majority of the most influential opposition parties were boycotting participation in the referendum almost uniformly (in comparison with the pro-European parties-led participation consensus). The strongest opposition Party of Socialists led by previous Moldovan pro-Russian president Igor Dodon directly promoted the position for the referendum boycott, while the second biggest euro-sceptical political party led by Renato Usati could not settle on any general unified position on the issue. From the results provided there is a really serious assumption, that in the case of general voting participation, the outcome can lead to contradicting resulting figures. Around 70,000 votes in the referendum (a total of 5 per cent of the voting turnout) were declared to be invalid (almost certainly protest ones). When we consider the voting data directly from the Moldovan territory, European integration declined from a sociological and also from a territorial perspective (note, blue indicates the results in favour of European integration). When we compare the results with the support for certain presidential candidates, euro-sceptical candidates received altogether almost 50 per cent of the overall votes (within the turnout as in the presidential elections 4 years ago), which means that if the results of the first election round will be signalizing current sociological opinions, president Maria Sandu and her political allies are loosing their unshaken popular support against the country nationalist camp. The definitive outcome was however decided by the arrivals of the votes from the Moldovans living abroad.
With this connection, we need to mention, that the current governing administration almost totally diminished the participation of the possible biggest Moldovan diaspora abroad – in Russia. In the country, where sociologists are assessing residing possibly 500,000 Moldovans, there were obviously purpose-made administrative decisions to open just 2 polling stations with around 10,000 ballots in total. Transnistrians were almost entirely excluded from this process. There was a possibility to vote for them only in the regions of governmental-controlled Moldova, but with their final turnout, it is obvious, that the factual opinion of the Transnistrian society in the election was totally diminished. The governing party is using various autocratic policies to crack down on opposition. Two years ago biggest opposition candidate Ilon Shor and his party were excluded from the election by criminal prosecution and legal dissolving. Almost all biggest opposition media were shut down because of a possible Russian interference connection. Many opposition individuals were charged with additional criminal proceedings, which is nicely also seen in the position of the main presidential rival Aleksandr Stoianoglo, who was not so long ago appointed as a General Prosecutor and shortly after Maria Sandu's presidency charged with numerous criminal cases. Overall machinations were eventually noticed by the OECD who literally stated in past year communal elections but also in the current presidential elections, that election conditions did not provide the contestants with a level playing field. Concerns regarding the current autocratic tendencies were also being heard from the other influential pro-European candidates, mostly notably from respected Moldovan economist and prime minister Ion Chicu.
President Maia Sandu despite her popularity thanks to her achieved education and humble personal lifestyle (in comparison with the overall corrupted and greedy Moldovan political society) is starting to disappoint Moldovans thanks to her undemocratically and one-sided foreign political objective in the obviously divided Moldovan society. The EU is basically minimalizing ordinary democratic standards in exchange for its possible expansion and further economic integration. When the main Ukrainian and pro-European opposition candidate (outlining not the whole political bloc dissolving) Yulia Timoshenko was sentenced to jail, top EU politicians were permanently pressing Ukrainian leadership for the dropping of charges and parallelly also boycotting participation in the summits and top-sport state-organized events. Actual European expansionist policy is practically diminishing its long-term credibility of the independent rule of law observatory, which is being practically reflected in the results of the election in the examples of Moldova, Georgia, Serbia, or within the European Union in the territory of Hungary or Slovakia. European Union is obviously distancing from its traditional values. Vocal critics aimed at the selected states can be easily evaded from the other ones. For Moldovans there was arisen obvious question - why is the country blocking any possible influence from one state, while totally incorporating the influence of another without any questions?
Almost all European foreign policy values topics were here neglected – minimalizing support for the ethnic minorities and separate ethnicities (in comparison with the denial of the single Yugoslavian ethnicity) while now even promoting Romanian expansionism. Neglecting the peaceful conflict resolutions (while flattering with the renewal of the Transnistrian conflict) or national right for self-determination (Transnistria and Gaugazia in comparison with Kosovo). All these things put the EU in an obviously hypocritical position for everyone. Elections were decided not because of the electoral manipulations, but because of the serious concerns rooted deeply inside of the Moldovan society in connection with their territorial integrity, very long (up to medieval) historical ethnicity, cultural values, peaceful conflict resolutions, and also natural concerns questioning the real advantages of the economic integration with the more advanced bloc of the economically highly developed states. Despite -democratic- manipulations in favour of pro-EU voting outcome are the final results of the referendum shameful and plastically depicting the legitimate concerns and insecurities deeply rooted inside the Moldovan society. The biggest fraud, in this case, is mostly notably the opinion polling agencies, who were assessing the share of the pro-EU outcome by 60:25 while weren’t even practically questioning the proportion of the Moldovan diaspora living abroad. It is practically not possible, that even in the cases of purported votes purchasing will be a nationalist side prevailing over the safe majority of the pro-European-minded population. The referendum's results destroyed the previously unwavering mantra of the single possible Moldovan foreign policy orientation.
The author is a lawyer and researcher