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AIE-style criteria, principles and values

Leaders of the Alliance for European Integration (AIE) have delivered schematic statements concerning the establishment of majority coalitions in districts. However, some of statements came before the latest and sharpest scandal between leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM) and Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM). The third component of AIE, the Liberal Party (PL) kept silence and neutrality in the scandal between the two allies. If attitudes and principle statements by AIE leaders do not change after the scandal concerned, they should be revealed in order to find ways to build district alliances.

According to PLDM leader Vlad Filat, “… let’s forget angers and work together for the sake of citizens. Local coalitions will be built in accordance with results of elections. Of course, they will be established within the Alliance for European Integration… We will not accept “alliances” as part of the alliance.” The positioning of the PLDM leader could mean that AIE will reply at district level only if the other two partners would allow the party who has most councillors to nominate the heads of districts, but they should not invoke the argument that together they have more councillors than PLDM.

PL leader Mihai Ghimpu does not warm the PLDM approach, proposing “… the establishment of coalitions accordingly to results of the voting at national level.” Thus, PL says that the seats of district heads shall be allotted in the 26 AIE-controlled districts proportionally to the overall number of votes, not mandates got by each party at district and municipal levels, inclusively in constituencies in which the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) won the absolute majority of seats of district and municipal councillors.

PDM leader Marian Lupu has partly backed the PL initiative and accused the PLDM of being egoist, as in the 26 AIE-controlled districts the PLDM would be helped to nominate its representatives in 23 out of 24 districts, PDM in 2 or even 3 districts and PL would not be able to claim any seat of district chief.

PDM worked out a draft agreement on building local democratic coalitions on the basis of common approaches by PDM and PL, which says that:

• AIE member parties will build local coalitions;
• No coalition will be made with representatives of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM);
• The basic criterion of the agreement consists in mutual, guaranteed and fair support for AIE member parties in the process of building coalitions and sharing ruling offices;
• Seats of district heads will be awarded on the basis of the general proportion between results of AIE member parties at elections to district councils: PLDM will be supported to promote 13 district heads; PD — 9 and PL — 4, and the concrete assignation will be negotiated and assessed in a special annex to the agreement.

The draft agreement seems to be realistic, despite the unclear method used by PDM to allot seats of district heads to AIE member parties. Perhaps the PDM took into account the fact that PL owes something to PLDM.

Fair criteria and principles

There is no way to apply directly the principle of majority vote of citizens in constituencies, promoted by PLDM to nominate heads of districts, as none of AIE party members got an absolute majority in any district. As for the relative majority, coalition partners supply them in the 26 districts up to simple majorities needed to assign heads of districts, in line with the law on local public administration. Thus, local AIE coalitions could be built just under a compromise with eventual allies, no matter who they are.

However, the PLDM-promoted majority principle is very important and useful, if applied together with the proportionality principle promoted by PL and supported by PDM in a different manner. In addition, if ensuring a fair reciprocal support while nominating district heads, PL should not forget that its candidate to the seat of Chisinau mayor was elected particularly due to the great support of PLDM. Therefore, PL should generously support PLDM to nominate district heads. The proportionality principle is the only way to reach a compromise needed to build local alliances and the majority principle alone provides the mechanism needed to identify the districts in which the three AIE member parties will nominate their candidates without any controversy. The generosity principle would allow PL to prove its nobility and pay off its “debts” to PLDM.

The appetite of PLDM to share the seats of district heads on basis of the relative majority criterion within local coalitions reveals the unrealism or the wish to have covers for other kind of coalitions, as the party is unable to assign alone at least one district head without support of eventual allies. Even more, PLDM cannot nominate own candidates in more than 6 districts, as Article 49(1) of Law No. 436/28.12.2006 concerning the local public administration says that “the district council shall elect the district head upon proposal of at least one third of elected councillors, with the vote of majority of elected councillors.”

The proportionality principle would provide an exit from impasse, but PL and PDM want to apply it in a different manner. PL seeks this principle, given the overall votes for the three AIE members in all districts and municipalities, including the eight PCRM-controlled districts in which AIE components do not have anything to share. According to this principle, PLDM would be able to nominate candidates in 11 districts, PL in 8 districts and PDM in 7. On the other hand, they should logically take into account the fact that the votes of electors turned into mandates of district councillors, who finally nominate district heads. If the proportionality principle takes into account the number of seats of councillors got by the three parties in districts, rather than the votes of electors, it should logically be used just in the 26 AIE-controlled districts, not in the districts and municipalities in which PCRM holds an absolute majority. This principle would provide the following picture: PLDM would get 12 seats, PDM — 9 and PL — 5. The result would be the same if applying the proportionality principle by taking into account the total number of seats got by AIE members, including in PCRM-controlled districts and municipalities. However, PDM applied a curious formula in the draft agreement to get the following distribution: PLDM — 13; PDM — 9; PL — 4. Perhaps PDM applied automatically the principle of generous gratification of PL towards PLDM.

If AIE member parties agree to apply the proportionality principle, the majority and generosity principles could be applied as follows:

• In districts in which PLDM (and PDM for formalisation) holds at least 1/3 of seats of councillors and can nominate own candidates to ruling offices, in line with the law on local public administration, these candidates would enjoy an unconditional and generous support by alliance partners. PLDM holds at least 1/3 of seats of councillors in 7 districts (Causeni, Criuleni, Hincesti, Ialoveni, Rezina, Soldanesti and Telenesti), and PDM in two districts (see the Table);
• In districts in which an AIE member holds less than 1/3 seats of councillors but more than the common number of mandates of the other two components, the leader is helped to nominate district heads. There are four such districts in case of PLDM (Briceni, Drochia, Soroca and Ungheni);
• In districts in which PLDM is represented by less than 1/3 of councillors and less than PDM and PL are, the latter hold the right to nominate candidates to head districts accordingly to majority. PDM would have the right to do so in Cahul, Calarasi, Floresti, Glodeni, Orhei, Riscani, and Stefan Voda. PL would do so in Anenii Noi, Cantemir, and Straseni.
• In districts in which the number of PLDM councillors is equivalent to the common number of PL and PDM councillors, the generosity principle should be used to establish the districts in which PLDM should be privileged to nominate candidates to head them, before meeting the requirements of proportionality principle (Cimislia, Falesti, Sangerei).
• After applying these principles, AIE components could agree on mutually acceptable exchanges in order to overcome strict standards.

Table 1. Allotment of seats of district heads in case of AIE enlargement at district level by using proportionality and majority principles

	PCRM	PLDM	PDM	PL	Alţii	Total
PCRM-controlled municipalities and districts PCRM > (PLDM + PDM + PL)
Chisinau	26	7	1	17	-	51
Balti	26	5	2	2	-	35
Basarabeasca	14	6	6	-	1	27
Donduseni	14	6	4	2	1	27
Dubasari	17	5	3	2	-	27
Edinet	17	5	10	1	-	33
Ocnita	20	6	6	1	-	33
Taraclia	19	3	4	-	-	27
Districts in which AIE holds an absolute majority but one of its components has at least 1/3 of councillors ((PLDM + PDM + PL) > PCRM; (PLDM ∨ PDM ∨ PL) ≥ 1/3)
Causeni	12	11	6	3	1	33
Criuleni	9	11	7	5	1	33
Hincesti	7	14	10	4	-	35
Ialoveni	7	11	7	8	-	33
Rezina	11	12	7	3	-	33
Soldanesti	9	9	5	3	1	27
Telenesti	4	14	10	5	-	33
Leova	10	9	11	3	-	33
Nisporeni	4	8	14	6	1	33
Districts in which AIE holds an absolute majority, PLDM is represented by less than 1/3 of councillors, but more than PDM and PL are together ((PLDM + PDM + PL) > PCRM; PLDM < 1/3; PLDM > (PDM + PL))
Briceni	14	10	7	2	-	33
Drochia	16	9	7	1	-	33
Soroca	14	10	6	3	-	33
Ungheni	14	11	6	3	-	35
Districts in which AIE holds an absolute majority, PLDM is represented by less than 1/3 of councillors and less than PDM and PL are together, and PDM has more councillors than PL ((PLDM + PDM + PL) > PCRM; PLDM < 1/3; PLDM < (PDM + PL); PDM > PL)
Cahul	15	9	6	4	1	35
Calarasi	7	9	8	5	4	33
Floresti	14	8	8	2	1	33
Glodeni	12	9	8	3	1	33
Orhei	6	10	9	7	3	35
Riscani	14	7	6	2	4	33
Stefan Voda	10	10	8	5	-	33
Districts in which AIE holds an absolute majority, PLDM is represented by less than 1/3 of councillors and less than PDM and PL are together, and PL has more councillors than PDM ((PLDM + PDM + PL) > PCRM; PLDM < 1/3; PLDM < (PDM + PL); PL > PDM)
Anenii Noi	14	8	4	5	2	33
Cantemir	12	9	5	7	-	33
Straseni	9	10	5	8	1	33
Districts in which AIE holds an absolute majority, but none of its components is represented by at least 1/3 of councillors, and PLDM and PDM+PL have the same number of councillors. In these districts, PLDM and PL shall reach a compromise in order to respect the proportionality principle, so that PLDM would control one district and PL — 2 (for example, PL would rule the district in which it got more seats and the district in which the difference of mandate is small) ((PLDM + PDM + PL) > PCRM; (PLDM ∩ PDM ∩ PL) < 1/3; PLDM = (PDM + PL))
Cimislia	11	10	6	4	2	33
Falesti	15	9	7	2	-	33
Singerei	11	10	8	2	2	33

Conclusions

• Disputes between AIE components exceeded the limits to be credible in eyes of electors. For the time being, following local elections, the definitive collapse or eventual recovery of AIE could be based on a political decision to build majorities in district councils. The failure to make such a decision would mean in fact the collapse of AIE and a political chaos which would be very hard to settle;
• An eventual disagreement of AIE members to reply in districts would not advantage any AIE components, if they make alliances with PCRM. For example, in a hypothetical alliance of PLDM with PCRM the first would get fewer seats of district heads accordingly to the majority principle which it promotes. In the best of cases, PLDM would get the same number of seats of district heads through conversion of independents as it would do if AIE extends in districts;
• Both the distribution of seats of district heads and of deputy district heads is important. The easiest way would be to allow other two AIE members to nominate deputy heads in the districts headed by an AIE component. However, it would be welcome to let the PCRM as well to nominate deputy heads of districts in which it controls more than 1/3 of seats of councillors;
• The fair approach explained above will be unlikely applied. AIE will likely collapse both in districts and at central level.

 

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