A couple of gift articles: Looks like Central/Eastern NYT Bureau Chief Andrew Higgins has been in Chișinău covering the election. (Are you a source, David? Higgins is kind of a celebrity journalist to me.)
What’s your sense for how widely the referendum was seen by Moldovans as first and foremost a political play by PAS? I’m not sure if that would change opinions for referendum swing voters, but I could see it driving anti-Sandu & “No EU” voter turnout.
I think a lot of the international analysis (not yours) hasn’t factored in domestic politics enough, especially the fact that President Sandu has a net negative popularity rating. She’s a more polarizing figure internally than she was even four years ago, but that’s not the picture you get of her in international media. Part of that is of course persistent disinformation targeting her and Moldova’s EU aspirations.
Hi Mark, great question and I think the one that most people in Moldova are trying to untangle right now. I think there are 2 elements of it that play off one another but are somewhat distinct.
Firstly, Maia Sandu is less popular than she was 4 years ago. Not radically so and I think we need more data to understand this in the vote (she got more votes in 2024 than 2020 first round but the turnout was higher for example). But in a general sense there is some real disappointment. This includes the standard disappointment that almost all incumbents face in re-election where the "idea" of their candidacy is compared to an actual track record.
Where this gets to the referendum though we already start to blend domestic politics with Russian disinformation. I'll give a few examples:
1) Isolating the domestic - Russian propaganda has done a very good job at convincing some of the population that Russia is their friend and has no ill will towards Moldova. This group of people has ambivalent views of the war (usually cynical - everyone is doing bad things, etc) and can detach international and domestic affairs in their minds. In this case they can blame Maia Sandu for inflation, high energy prices, etc without connecting this to a wider crisis. Basically, Russia's actions are blamed on the government which gets no credit for fighting fires and crisis management.
2) Wedging the referendum - at this time I only have "anecdata" here but I know people who support joining the EU and voted against the referendum. These people bought the Kremlin / Shor attack line that the referendum was a trick / unconstitutional / results in a lack of sovereignty (because the constitution is amended) / etc. These narratives don't 100% come from the Kremlin either but propaganda feeds them all (let's remember it's unusual for a country to hold a referendum this early and lots of people came up with reasons to be suspect - both reasonable and silly). This wedged some pro-EU voters away from the referendum on more or less technical grounds. Whatever the technical reason caused the voters to feel betrayed by the process and cynical about it.
In this later group, the campaign failed to impress on the voters the stakes - if Moldova voted "No" that very well might have been it. Some voters thought they could vote no to constitutional amendments and still join the EU.
These are very preliminary thoughts and may turn out to be the wrong way to look at things. I hope to write a more comprehensive analysis this week as more data and reporting come out. But I think the core idea is going to be the same - there were domestic components to this election but these issues and grievances were massively exploited be Russia.
Fundamentally, the Kremlin was playing to win. They don't have any ideological purity and could support any argument that gets them there. With an estimated 100 million euros in spending they probably outspent PAS 300+ to 1. That's a hard game to play.
Thanks for the thoughts, David. Your points on how Russian messaging “isolates the domestic”is a good reminder, as that’s been going on for more than just this pre-election period. I’m thinking of the energy crises of 2021-2022 or so and how difficult it was for the government to get credit for the actions they were taking and overcome Russia’s framing of the negotiations.
In the end this isn’t a death knell to Moldova’s EU plans, and given how long the process may take there’s opportunity to improve messaging and limit Russia’s operating room. The political playing field is so fragmented right now that I don’t see a cohesive anti-EU political force forming to reverse the reforms Moldova has already taken. I suspect there will be short-lived spoiler candidates or anti-EU factions minorities in Parliament that slow the process, but not a coherent movement to stop it. We will have to wait and see.
Good, measured and thoughtful piece. Moldova could do with more of that spirit.
A couple of gift articles: Looks like Central/Eastern NYT Bureau Chief Andrew Higgins has been in Chișinău covering the election. (Are you a source, David? Higgins is kind of a celebrity journalist to me.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/21/world/europe/moldova-eu-referendum-vote-result.html?unlocked_article_code=1.T04.0HHF.VKJu8CDYvzmC&smid=url-share
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/19/world/europe/natalia-morari-moldova-corrupt-business.html?unlocked_article_code=1.T04.MJre.4kUCwOTa1hur&smid=url-share
What’s your sense for how widely the referendum was seen by Moldovans as first and foremost a political play by PAS? I’m not sure if that would change opinions for referendum swing voters, but I could see it driving anti-Sandu & “No EU” voter turnout.
I think a lot of the international analysis (not yours) hasn’t factored in domestic politics enough, especially the fact that President Sandu has a net negative popularity rating. She’s a more polarizing figure internally than she was even four years ago, but that’s not the picture you get of her in international media. Part of that is of course persistent disinformation targeting her and Moldova’s EU aspirations.
Hi Mark, great question and I think the one that most people in Moldova are trying to untangle right now. I think there are 2 elements of it that play off one another but are somewhat distinct.
Firstly, Maia Sandu is less popular than she was 4 years ago. Not radically so and I think we need more data to understand this in the vote (she got more votes in 2024 than 2020 first round but the turnout was higher for example). But in a general sense there is some real disappointment. This includes the standard disappointment that almost all incumbents face in re-election where the "idea" of their candidacy is compared to an actual track record.
Where this gets to the referendum though we already start to blend domestic politics with Russian disinformation. I'll give a few examples:
1) Isolating the domestic - Russian propaganda has done a very good job at convincing some of the population that Russia is their friend and has no ill will towards Moldova. This group of people has ambivalent views of the war (usually cynical - everyone is doing bad things, etc) and can detach international and domestic affairs in their minds. In this case they can blame Maia Sandu for inflation, high energy prices, etc without connecting this to a wider crisis. Basically, Russia's actions are blamed on the government which gets no credit for fighting fires and crisis management.
2) Wedging the referendum - at this time I only have "anecdata" here but I know people who support joining the EU and voted against the referendum. These people bought the Kremlin / Shor attack line that the referendum was a trick / unconstitutional / results in a lack of sovereignty (because the constitution is amended) / etc. These narratives don't 100% come from the Kremlin either but propaganda feeds them all (let's remember it's unusual for a country to hold a referendum this early and lots of people came up with reasons to be suspect - both reasonable and silly). This wedged some pro-EU voters away from the referendum on more or less technical grounds. Whatever the technical reason caused the voters to feel betrayed by the process and cynical about it.
In this later group, the campaign failed to impress on the voters the stakes - if Moldova voted "No" that very well might have been it. Some voters thought they could vote no to constitutional amendments and still join the EU.
These are very preliminary thoughts and may turn out to be the wrong way to look at things. I hope to write a more comprehensive analysis this week as more data and reporting come out. But I think the core idea is going to be the same - there were domestic components to this election but these issues and grievances were massively exploited be Russia.
Fundamentally, the Kremlin was playing to win. They don't have any ideological purity and could support any argument that gets them there. With an estimated 100 million euros in spending they probably outspent PAS 300+ to 1. That's a hard game to play.
Thanks for the thoughts, David. Your points on how Russian messaging “isolates the domestic”is a good reminder, as that’s been going on for more than just this pre-election period. I’m thinking of the energy crises of 2021-2022 or so and how difficult it was for the government to get credit for the actions they were taking and overcome Russia’s framing of the negotiations.
In the end this isn’t a death knell to Moldova’s EU plans, and given how long the process may take there’s opportunity to improve messaging and limit Russia’s operating room. The political playing field is so fragmented right now that I don’t see a cohesive anti-EU political force forming to reverse the reforms Moldova has already taken. I suspect there will be short-lived spoiler candidates or anti-EU factions minorities in Parliament that slow the process, but not a coherent movement to stop it. We will have to wait and see.