Paula Erizanu: If re-elected, Maia Sandu will have to become more radical in reforms

Vladimir Mitev

An interview with Moldovan journalist Paula Erizanu on the unexpected results of the first round of the 2024 presidential elections and the referendum on constitutional changes that could allow Moldova to become an EU member.

On the one hand, the opposition candidate from the Socialist Party of Moldova, Alexandru Stoianoglo, did much better than the result he was expected to achieve in the preliminary polls. On the other hand, instead of the referendum passing with more than 60% approval, the option in favour of the constitutional changes received only a few thousand votes more than the one against.

Paula Erizanu explained these surprising results with Russia’s interference in the elections through the oligarch Ilan Șor, vote buying and disinformation. But she also attributed some of the reasons for these results to the failure of President Maia Sandu to implement judicial reform, as well as to the difficult social and economic situation in recent years. Paula Erizanu recalled that Moldova is among the countries most affected by the war in Ukraine.

According to the Moldovan journalist, it is not easy to talk about a dividing line between the diaspora, which strongly supported the constitutional changes in the referendum, and the population inside the country, which generally voted against them. Rather, there is a spillover between people living inside the country and those outside.

Paula Erizanu predicts that the tension between Russophiles and Europhiles in Moldovan politics will continue after the presidential elections, as there are parliamentary elections in 2025 on which much depends. Paula Erizanu’s prediction is that if Maia Sandu wins the second round of elections, she should be more radical in implementing reforms in the next term, as the slow pace of reforms favours Russia.

Mrs Erizanu, the referendum in Moldova on constitutional and pro-European changes and the first round of the presidential elections have already passed. The results differ quite significantly from what was predicted in the opinion polls before the elections. The referendum passed with a minimal difference in terms of cast ballots between the yes and the no option, while, on the other hand, Maia Sandu’s main opponent, Alexander Stoianoglo, received much more than what was predicted in the polls before the elections. What are the reasons for these unexpected results?

At 1 am today, Maia Sandu gave a press briefing in which she accused the criminal group Șor of using millions of euros from Russia to buy 300 000 votes. If you analyse the polls and take out between 150 000 and 300 000 votes from the referendum and election results, then you get a portrait much closer to the polls, which, let us not forget, usually exclude the diaspora. So the diaspora would increase the pro-European result and support for Sandu even more. Last week, the police, the security services and the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office were talking about evidence that 130 000 people were involved in taking bribes. This is a number that is twice as low as what Sandu mentioned, but both are quite mind-boggling.

Is that the only reason why there was vote buying? Or are there also relatively objective reasons related to the social situation or reform problems?

Yes, I think there is also propaganda and misinformation, which has reached its peak in recent months, but also in recent years, since Moldova has moved closer to the European Union. Moldova is the country most affected by the war after Ukraine, as former Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu said. In these two years, inflation has reached around 40%. So people’s pockets have been seriously affected by the war in Ukraine, by high energy prices, even though they were subsidised by European aid.

Of course, there is also frustration with the slow pace of reforms, especially in the judiciary. Here we can say that we have seen the result of this sluggishness in judicial reform. In all countries, justice is quite slow because, in order to have a proper judicial process, according to the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, you have to go through various stages of verification. In the Republic of Moldova, however, there is frustration anyway, because, for example, law enforcement agencies come out and talk about lawlessness.

On the other hand, I lived through Brexit. I was living in London when Brexit was voted for and when it turned out that Russia was involved in the propaganda, in the microtargeting there as well. And there, too, there were lies and anti-European narratives that had been fed for decades by certain politicians, certain political figures, certain newspapers with vested interests.

From the outside looking in, it seems that it was during the referendum that a rift emerged between the Moldovan diaspora and the population living in the country, because in the Republic of Moldova, the referendum was answered with a ‘no’ to the call for constitutional change, while the diaspora actually changed the result in favour of the ‘yes’ option. How true is the observation that there is, perhaps, a growing rift between the diaspora and the population at home?

In Chisinau, many ‘yes’ votes were cast, just like in the diaspora. We have a difference between voting in big cities and in more rural areas.

I cannot make too clear a distinction between who is in the diaspora and who is on the ground. Am I in the diaspora or am I on the ground? I lived in the UK for 12 years, I’ve been back for 2 years but at the same time I travel a lot. I’m more privileged, but even people who have fewer opportunities than me still have the opportunity to go, for example, on seasonal work in the EU and I do. So it is very difficult to distinguish between those who live abroad and those who live at home. And if one lives abroad, one is still connected to Moldovan realities. Maybe there is a job that is connected to Moldovan realities. Maybe he still lives with a Moldovan family. Maybe he comes home many times a year. Sends money to his relatives here and so on.

So I don’t see a distance between the diaspora and the population in the country, but rather connections, similarities, nuances and convergence. We also have to look at the demographics. Most of those who go abroad to support their families financially are able-bodied, young people, and demographically their choice is pro-European.

Another interesting fact is that when the Communist Party was in power in 2000, support for Moldova’s European integration was 70% in opinion polls. We can say that the fact that we now have 55-63% in the polls or 50% in the referendum is partly due to the fact that a large part of the population of the Republic of Moldova has left. Practically a third of the population is abroad. But again, I want to stress that this is not the same as the Congolese, say, where they have moved to the Republic of Moldova and have never been back and have not been there for 20 years, or I can use other examples. Relations between Europe and Moldova are much more flexible, much closer, much more comfortable.

In two weeks’ time, there will be a second round of presidential elections, and in 2025 there will be parliamentary elections, which are the most important. What strategy will the Russophile and pro-European forces have for the foreseeable future?

Pro-Russian forces will probably use the same methods in the future. And the pro-European forces clearly need to change their tactics, and it is not yet clear what their tactics will be. It is clear that if they continue as they have been, they will reach an impasse.

Maia Sandu came to power with the promise to reform the system. After the referendum and the results of the first round of the presidential elections, how do you see Maia Sandhu’s chances of continuing her reform project? Is she beating the system or is the system beating her?

It is clear that if Maia Sandu wins a second term, she will have to become more radical in her reforms in order to see a more immediate effect and prevent the disintegration of the democratic process in the Republic of Moldova. Because the longer she pursues slow reforms, the greater the chances of victory for Russia and the oligarchs who want to destabilise Moldova’s European course.

Photo: EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (tv) and Maia Sandu (th) in spring 2023 (Source: Dati Bendo/European Commission ) (Creative Commons 4.0) 

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