Parliamentary elections in Moldova, April and July 2009

Ozgehan Senyuva
*
International Relations Department, IIBF-B Building, Middle East Technical University, Inonu Bulvari, 06531, Ankara, Turkey
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 30 September 2009
Accepted 6 December 2009
1. Background
The citizens of the Republic of Moldova went to the
polls for parliamentary elections on 5 April 2009.
According to the Moldovan constitution, the new parlia-
ment elects the new President of the Republic and
conrms the new government. However, none of the
contesting parties managed to reach the necessary
number of seats in the parliament to elect the new pres-
ident. Thus, the parliament was dissolved and early elec-
tions took place only 3 months after the general elections,
on 29 July.
Both elections took place in a tense atmosphere due to
the erce competition between the incumbent Party of
the Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) and
the major opposition parties who were united in their
anti-communist discourse. Electoral competition was
made more intense because incumbent President and
leader of the PCRM, Vladimir Voronin, was completing
his second and nal term in ofce. Ofcially a parlia-
mentary republic, Moldova functions as a presidential
republic, with most powers centered on the presidents
ofce. President Voronins dual capacity as the president
of the republic and head of the ruling party gave him
powers to an extent that is very rare in other European
democracies.
Since its independence from the Soviet Union in
1991, the Republic of Moldova has outperformed most
other CIS members in the political sphere. It has orga-
nized elections every 4 years, in line with its constitu-
tion, and, despite certain shortcomings, all of these
elections were recognized by the international commu-
nity and observer institutions. However, Moldova also
faces severe territorial disputes with the breakaway
region of Transnistria, and is considered to be the
poorest country in Europe with extreme inequalities in
the distribution of wealth.
2. Electoral system
Moldova is a unicameral parliamentary republic.
According to the Electoral Code,
1
parliamentary elections
take place every 4 years. The Moldovan parliament has 101
seats and, since an October 1993 amendment to the elec-
toral system, the whole country is one single electoral
district to which members are allocated via the dHondt
method of proportional representation. One motivation for
opting for a proportional system and a single national
constituency was the impossibility of applying district
boundaries within the breakaway region of Transnistria.
Following a further amendment to electoral rules, made in
March 2000, the threshold for parliamentary representa-
tion was raised from 4% to 6%. The purpose of this change
was to reduce fragmentation in the party system by
limiting the access of small parties to the parliament (Botan
et al., 2008, p. 10). The same amendment saw the threshold
for independent candidates lowered to 3%. However, with
a single national constituency, this remains a very high
threshold; since 1994, no independent candidate has
managed to win a seat in parliament.
3. Contenders and campaigning
On 2 February 2009, Parliament was dissolved and 5
April was established as the date for the countrys fth
general election since independence. According to the
Electoral Code, the formal campaigning period begins
60 days before polling day. A total of 23 political groups
and independent candidates applied for registration to
the Central Electoral Commission to participate in the
general election. However, two of these were rejected for
not meeting the minimum number of 2000 signatures
needed to run in parliamentary elections, and so 15
political parties and 6 independent candidates were
included on the ofcial election list. Ultimately, however,
4 of the 21 registered competitors (3 parties and 1
independent) withdrew from the election and did not
feature on the ballot paper.
The proliferation of options notwithstanding, most
attention during the campaign period was paid to the 4
* Tel.: 90 312 210 3086; fax: 90 312 210 7983.
E-mail address: senyuva@metu.edu.tr
1
The full code is available at http://www.e-democracy.md/les/
elections/parliamentary2009/electoral-code-en.pdf
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 171195 190
parties considered most likely to pass the 6% threshold: the
incumbent PCRM, and the liberal bloc composed of the
Liberal Party (PL), the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova
(PLDM) and the Our Moldova Alliance (AMN).
2
In a March
2009 pre-election poll conducted by Gallup for the Institute
for Public Policy of Moldova, 36.2% of the participants
indicated that they would vote for PCRM. In the same study,
the forecasts for PLDM, PL, and AMN were 8.3%, 8.2% and
5.4% respectively. In the same study all other parties were
below 3% (IPP, 2009, p. 46).
The PCRM entered the campaign period with the slogan
of I vote for stability, underlining the point that, under
their rule, Moldova has been a stable country. The issue of
stability dominated their discourse in general, and their
posters and ads in particular. They also acknowledged the
European orientation of the predominantly Romanian-
speaking country using the slogan Building European
Moldova Together. The PCRM used television very ef-
ciently, taking full advantage of holding the presidency. In
the course of his ofcial duties, President Voronin appeared
numerous times on both public and private channels,
hosting visiting international dignitaries and opening state
construction projects. The constant presence of President
Voronin was especially important considering that 88% of
Moldovans report following news daily on television (IPP,
2009, p. 23). It has also been subject to criticism. The
International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) stated
that the public broadcaster Moldova 1 in its news offered
preferential treatment of the authorities, blurring the
distinction between the coverage of duties of top state
ofcials and their campaign activities (IEOM, 2009a, p. 1).
The PL focused its campaign on anti-PCRM rhetoric.
Although the partys leader is Mihai Gimpu, its main face is
his nephew Dorin Chirtoaca, the 31-year-old mayor of
Moldovas capital city, Chisinau. During the campaign
Gimpu was almost invisible, leaving the spotlight for
Chirtoaca to present an image of freshness and youth.
Change was the main campaign emphasis of the PL, the
party using slogans such as Vote for Change and Change
for the Better starts with the Liberal Party. The other
liberal party in the competition was the PLDM, led by Vlad
Filat, who had served as a minister and headed the
Privatization Department in the Lucinschi-Diacov govern-
ment in the 1990s. The PLDM is a new party, established in
2007, and hence presented itself as a fresh and incorrupt
political force. Like the Liberals, the Liberal Democratic
Party emphasized anti-communism and change. Their
main slogan was Stop Communism! Green Light to
Moldova.
Despite sharing the liberal banner and a strongly anti-
communist stance, the PL and PLDM were frequently in
major dispute during the election campaign. On 17 March,
Chirtoaca harshly criticized Filat, bringing up accusations of
illegal privatization and also reminding the electorate of
Filats vote in favor of Voronins second term in 2005,
claiming that this in itself was sufcient grounds for dis-
trusting the anti-communist rhetoric of Vlad Filat
(Moldpres, 2009a). Two weeks later, in a debate broadcast
on 31 March on state-owned TV channel Moldova 1, Chir-
toaca responded very harshly when Filat invited the PL to
join a coalition of opposition, arguing that talk of an alli-
ance among liberals was an attempt by Filat to deceive
voters into shifting from the PL to the PLDM (Dezbateri
Electorale, 2009). However, while ruling out a formal coa-
lition, Chirtoaca did not exclude the possibility of post-
election cooperation.
The nal main player in the campaign, the AMN, was led
by Seram Urecheanu, an unsuccessful presidential candi-
date in 2005. While the AMN lined up among the opposi-
tion parties, its electoral list was composed mainly of
former mayors, councilors, and other former ofce-holders
in the old communist regime. The AMN tried to tap into the
Table 1
Results of the parliamentary elections in Republic of Moldova, 5 April and 29 July 2009.
5 April
a
29 July
Votes Votes (%) Seats Votes Votes (%) Seats
Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova
(PCRM)
760551 49.5 60 706732 44.7 48
Liberal Party (PL) 201879 13.1 15 232108 14.7 15
Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM) 191,113 12.4 15 262028 16.6 18
Moldova Noastra (Our Moldova) Alliance (AMN) 150155 9.8 11 116194 7.4 7
Social Democratic Party 56866 3.7 29434 1.9
Christian Democratic Peoples Party 46654 3.0 30236 1.9
Democratic Party of Moldova (PD) 45698 3.0 198268 12.5 13
Centrist Union of Moldova 42211 2.8
Actiunea Europeana (European Action)
Movement
15481 1.0
Others/independents 26479 1.7 6517 0.4
Votes cast 1556083 1591757
Invalid votes 18996 10,240
Registered electorate 2586309 2708381
Turnout (%) 57.5 58.8
Source: Central Electoral Commission (2009).
a
These are the results of the ofcial recount on 15 April. They differ only very slightly from those announced following the initial count.
2
For an in-depth analysis of the parties and their stances, see Socor
(2009).
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 171195 191
European Union ambitions of the Moldovans, adopting
slogans such as Eurointegration with the Governing AMN
and European Leap for Moldova.
The PCRM appeared to have a more inclusive strategy
for attracting both Romanian- and Russian-speaking
Moldovans. Their broadcasts and campaign materials
appeared in both languages, and they enjoyed an ethni-
cally cosmopolitan support base, notably in the small
autonomous region of Gagauzia, where PCRM attracted
the majority of the ethnic Gagauz votes. The opposition
parties mainly addressed the Romanian-speaking pop-
ulation of whom a sizeable proportion consider them-
selves Romanians and even occasionally showed
unionist tendencies; that is, support for unication with
Romania.
4. Election results: April
More than 1.5m of the approximately 2.5m registered
voters turned out to vote. At 58%, the turnout was seven
points down on the 2005 Parliamentary election, but
comfortably met the minimum of 50% specied by the
electoral code. However, in the breakaway Transnistrian
region only 4437 voters - less than 2% of the total number of
registered Transnistrians - turned out on 5 April (CEC,
2009a). According to a monitoring report by the Moldovan
Human Rights NGO Promo-Lex (2009), the plunge in
Transnistrian turnout can be explained by unprecedented
actions of intimidation, prosecution and control exerted
over the regions voters.
Results from an exit poll, broadcast soon after the
polls closed, indicated that the four main contending
parties had passed the 6% threshold (Adept, 2009a). This
was conrmed the following day when the results were
announced by the Central Electoral Commission (Table
1). The PCRM was the clear winner with 49.5% of the
vote. This gave them a clear parliamentary majority, with
60 of the 101 seats. However, it left them agonizingly
short of the 61 seats required to elect the new president.
The three opposition parties shared the remaining 41
seats between them, 15 each for the two liberal parties
and 11 for the AMN. Fifteen percent of the electorate
chose a party or candidate that did not surpass the
threshold and hence did not win parliamentary
representation.
5. Reaction
On 6 April, the day after polling, the International
Election Observation Mission (IEOM) released its
preliminary report. It stated that the elections were
held in an overall pluralistic environment, providing
electors with distinct political alternatives and meeting
many commitments assumed within the OSCE and
Council of Europe (IEOM, 2009a, p.1). However, this
optimistic outlook was soon challenged. One member of
the IEOM, Emma Nicholson (2009), criticized the Mis-
sions public statement as much too friendly. Later,
when the OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission
issued its nal report in June, it reported that further
investigations had revealed shortcomings that chal-
lenged some OSCE commitments, in particular the
disregard for due process in adjudicating complaints of
alleged irregularities and deciencies in the compilation
of voter lists lodged by opposition political parties
(OSCE/ODIHR, 2009, p.1). On the particularly signicant
issue of manipulation of voter lists, the report prevari-
cated somewhat: most of the cases compiled by oppo-
sition parties appeared credible, but the evidence
presented to ODIHR was limited, and an authoritative
conclusion on the issue would have needed a compre-
hensive analysis and thorough investigation by the
authorities (OSCE/ODIHR, 2009, p.3).
The defeated parties were much less equivocal in their
judgments of the electoral process. All three parliamen-
tary opposition parties refused to recognize the results,
complaining of various instances of electoral fraud. The
accusations included multiple voting by certain individ-
uals, voting by dead citizens, and substantial manipula-
tion of supplementary voting lists, which enable voters to
register on the spot if their names do not appear on the
list in a specic polling station (Adept, 2009b). The
opposition also pointed to the obstacles placed in the way
of Moldovans resident in Romania and trying to cross the
border to vote. It was alleged that many of these Mol-
dovan citizens were denied permission to enter their
homeland, without any clear reasons being given for this
refusal.
Anger at the perceived electoral fraud led the opposition
parties to organize a series of protests in the main square of
Chisinau, and the number and intensity of demonstrations
quickly increased acceleration due in large part to new
technologies such as Facebook, Twitter and SMS (Morozov,
2009) following the ofcial announcement of the election
results. Protest took a violent turn on 7 April, when more
than 30,000 protesters gathered in Chisinaus Great
National Assembly Square. The protesters, mostly young
people and many carrying Romanian or European Union
ags and banners, demanded a re-run of what they
described as rigged elections. In the afternoon, following
the retreat of the security forces, a large group of protesters
stormed the Parliament building and the Presidents ofce,
on two sides of the square, vandalizing both buildings and
leaving the parliament in ames. Opposition leaders called
repeatedly for calm. However, television footage of the
burning Parliament building, shown throughout the night
especially on the state-owned Moldova 1 channel caused
most of the wider population to lose sympathy with the
protestors. They also drew international attention to this
small republic.
The state reaction to protests was severe. According
to state news agency MoldPres (2009b), some 150 to
200 protestors were arrested by the police on 7 and 8
April. There were credible reports about mistreatment of
detainees; three fatalities were reported in connection
with the demonstrations and detentions. Meanwhile,
President Voronins reaction to the protests centered on
his claim that Romania driven by a desire to take
Moldova within its own borders was the driving force
behind the Chisinau riots. Voronin pledged to take the
necessary steps to thwart these ambitions, asserting that
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 171195 192
well end this game of theirs. Specically, he
announced that a visa regime for Romanian citizens
would be introduced as of 9 April, and expelled two
high-ranking Romanian diplomats (the ambassador in
Chisinau, Filip Teodorescu, and the minister-adviser of
the Romanian Embassy, Ioan Gaborean) (Voronin,
2009a). Romanias reaction came in a statement to the
countrys parliament by its President, Traian Basescu, on
14 April: Romania will not permit the transformation of
the Prut [the river dividing the two countries] into
another Iron Curtain . Denying the Romanian identity
is part of the totalitarian legacy in the Republic of
Moldova. (Basescu, 2009). On the same day, Russia also
weighed into the controversy, expressing deep concern
at the post-election disorder and suggesting that the
preponderance of Romanian ags and slogans betrayed
the protestors as seeking to compromise recent
achievements in strengthening the sovereignty of Mol-
dova (Adept, 2009c).
Meanwhile, on 8 April, the Central Electoral
Commission (CEC) announced that the opposition parties
would be granted access to the voter lists that were at
the heart of the alleged electoral fraud. However,
following a PCRM appeal to the Supreme Court on 10
April, this CEC decision was overturned. Instead, Presi-
dent Voronin asked the Constitutional Court for a full
ballot recount. This took place on 15 April. Since it
indicated no major changes of results, the election
outcome and the mandates of the newly elected depu-
ties were validated by the Constitutional Court on 22
April.
6. The path to new elections
Vladimir Voronin was elected as the new parliamentary
speaker on 12 May, in a vote boycotted by the 41 opposition
MPs. However, as noted above, the election results had left
the PCRMone short of the required 61 votes for the election
of a new president. So the three opposition parties, still
united by their anger at the conduct of the 5 April elections,
were thus able to block both of the two PCRM candidates
incumbent Prime Minister Zinaida Greceanii and Stanislav
Groppa from election to the presidency. Consequently, in
accordance with the constitution,
3
the acting President
dissolved Parliament and fresh elections were scheduled
for 29 July 2009.
A number of (temporary) changes were made to the
electoral rules for the July contest. The ofcial campaign
period was reduced to 44 days and the elections were
scheduled for a Wednesday. Partly because this was
a working day Moldovan elections having previously
been held on Sunday the turnout requirement was
reduced from half to one-third of the registered electorate
(and it was agreed that no turnout requirement would be in
force for any repeat election should the 29 July election fail
to meet this one-third minimum). And the electoral
threshold for parties was reduced from 6% to 5%. Despite
this lowering of the threshold, the tight time-scale
restricted the ability of smaller parties and individual
candidates to organize and mobilize. In total, 8 parties
contested the early elections and there were no indepen-
dent candidates on the list.
7. The new campaign
In a press conference at the outset of the campaign,
Vladimir Voronin set the tone for what was to be
a contest in a very tense and highly polarized polity.
Voronin (2009b) declared that the 29 July elections
would be a plebiscite on the issue of our independence,
a decision about whether an independent Moldova will
exist or not, and went further by describing the liberal
bloc as not an opponent of the Communist Party, but an
opponent of the Republic of Moldova. Campaign litera-
ture issued by the PCRM echoed these arguments.
Claiming that the April elections were honestly and
clearly won by PCRM, but had been hijacked by the
criminal actions of the opposition, the party claimed that
the upcoming contest would be a choice between
extremists and state-minded forces, between street arbi-
trariness and the law, between losing the country and its
independence (PCRM 2009).
One reason why Voronin and the PCRM hardened
their stance against the opposition was that those parties
were presenting a much more united and harmonious
front than in the run-up to the April elections. On 22
June, the PL, PLDM and AMN announced in a joint
statement that they had established a Political Council for
Dialogue and Cooperation, in order to express a clear
message of political solidarity (Adept, 2009d). The
parties reported themselves willing to form a coalition
government following the elections, while clearly ruling
out any possibility of contesting the elections as a unied
list (Adept, 2009e). Predictably, the opposition blocs
discourse was dominated by anti-communist messages,
the AMN campaigning under the slogan Lets Save Our
Motherland from Communists. In a unied approach, the
opposition parties presented the 29 July elections as an
opportunity to terminate the Communist dictatorship and
to make Moldova a politically stable, democratic and
wealthier European country.
In this polarized climate, campaigning was unsurpris-
ingly aggressive and peppered with not just harsh but often
libelous criticisms of the candidates (Civic Coalition for Free
and Fair Elections Coalition 2009, 2009a). According to
the media observation reports by the Center for Indepen-
dent Journalism and Civic Coalition (2009), the same
atmosphere characterized media coverage of the elections
which was also highly partisan and frequently broke the
rules on campaign coverage. For example, on 10 July several
of the PCRMs televised campaign adverts were banned by
the CEC which found themto be in violation of the electoral
code (CEC, 2009b).
The major political development between the two
elections was the resignation of Marian Lupu, the speaker
of the Parliament, from the Communist Party on 10 June.
A week later, in a joint press conference with Dumitru
Diacov, the president of the Democrat Party of Moldova
3
Art. 78(5) of the Constitution and Art. 76(3) of the electoral code.
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 171195 193
(PD), Lupu announced that he would lead the PD list in
the upcoming elections (Jurnal de Chisinau, 2009). Since
he had been one of the most prominent Communist
front-benchers, Lupus move startled most observers, and
The Social Democratic Party of Moldova called this move
a PCRM tactic (Braghis, 2009). Voronin atly denied this,
instead claiming that Lupu resigned because he had not
been put forward as a candidate for president after the 5
April elections (Omega, 2009). Lupu himself appeared at
a much-covered press conference on 26 June, denying
claims of collusion with the PCRM and describing himself
as not a project of the Communists, but their headache.
(Infotag, 2009).
Another prominent name during the campaign process
was that of Mark Tkachuk, for several years an advisor to
Voronin and the head of the PCRMs electoral organiza-
tion. Although he remained behind the scenes throughout
the run-ups to the two elections, Tkachuk was widely
considered to be a very inuential gure within the party
and to be masterminding its Soviet-like tactics, the latest
of which was held to be the transfer of Marian Lupu into
the opposition ranks. Boris Asarov, president of the
Transnistrian Association Pro Europa, went so far as to
claim that there is an international criminal network led
by Tkachuk, which is implementing the Lupu Project
(Info-Prim-Neo, 2009). Lupu countered by suggesting that
popular accounts of Tkachuk and his powers are too
mythologized, and the rumors subsided in the course of
the campaign (Infotag, 2009). Nonetheless, the role and
inuence of Mark Tkachuk in Moldovan politics is worthy
of further exploration.
8. Election results: July
Turnout on 29 July was 59%, more or less the same as in
the April elections. Of the 8 contesting parties, 5 managed
to pass the electoral threshold. The major gainer
compared to the April results was the Democratic Party,
which increased its vote share from 3% to 13% and gained
13 seats in the parliament (Table 1). An obvious question
concerns the extent to which this was a result of Marian
Lupus arrival and the extra prominence that it conferred
on the party. In any case, the PDs arrival in Parliament,
together with a continued strong showing of the liberal
parties (the PLDM taking 18 and the PL 15 seats), meant
that the PCRM lost its parliamentary majority, ending up
with 48 of the 101 seats.
In stark contrast to the April elections, this time both the
polling and the announcement of results passed without
major incidents or acts of violence. The elections were
found to meet many of the international standards, albeit
with room for improvement in terms of voters trust in the
process according to the preliminary observation report by
IEOM (2009b). However, local observers from the Civic
Coalition for Free and Fair Elections Coalition 2009
(2009b) stated that the early elections were neither wholly
free nor wholly fair. Both national and international
monitors drew particular attention to the aggression of
campaigning and bias in media coverage.
9. Aftermath
With the PCRM denied a majority, the opposition bloc
intensied its talks concerning a possible coalition govern-
ment. Ultimately, the pre-election allies, the PL, PLDM and
AMN, joined with the PD under Marian Lupu and formed
a coalition that they named the Alliance for European
Integration. This Alliance has 53 MPs in the 101-seat
parliament, sufcient to elect the speaker of the parliament
and to form a government. Hence, in the rst sitting of the
new parliament on 28 August, the PLs leader Mihai Ghimpu
was elected as speaker. On 11 September, President Vladimir
Voronin announced his resignation from the ofce of pres-
ident. According to the Moldovan Constitution, Ghimpu will
act as interimpresident until a newpresident is voted by the
parliament. However, the Alliance is some way short of the
61 votes necessary to elect a new president. Moreover,
Communist support for an opposition candidate always
seemed unlikely, and certainly did not materialize on 10
November when Marian Lupu stood unsuccessfully for the
presidency (obtaining only the 53 votes held by the coalition
parties). The constitution prohibits more than two elections
per year, but the impasse over the presidency suggests that
another premature election in early 2010 seems highly
probable. With this in mind, on 30 October the ruling coa-
lition passed some amendments to the rules for electing the
president. In particular, they ensured that parliament will
not be dissolved againwithin one year of the last dissolution,
even in the case of failure to elect the new president. This
gives the Alliance the chance to demonstrate their governing
capabilities. The new government convened for the rst
time on 25 September and used the opportunity to restate
their European commitment. Signicantly, the rst ofcial
visit abroad by Vlad Filat, newly nominated as Prime
Minister, was to Brussels.
2009 was a momentous political year for the Republic of
Moldova. On the one hand, it was marred with severe
political polarization and tension. Not only did the 5 April
elections fail to elect a president and therefore result in
almost immediate dissolution of parliament, but also they
were marred with such tension and violence that the
Parliament building and Presidents ofce were left torched.
On the other hand, the post-electionprotests did not lead to
a color revolution. Rather, the country demonstrated its
commitment to democratic change, holding new and
virtually trouble-free elections within only 3 months after
the general elections. Furthermore, after almost a decade of
rule by the PCRM, power has been transferred in a peaceful
and democratic manner to the opposition. These opposition
parties demonstrated considerable political maturity in
resolving their differences to forma ruling coalition. Finally,
all of this was achieved in the face of severe economic
difculties. It constitutes strong evidence that Moldovas
politicians and people are committed to developing their
democracy and facing its shortcomings.
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the
Erasmus Mundus Program ECW Lot 6 during his stay in the
Republic of Moldova.
Notes on Recent Elections / Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 171195 194
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