Explainer: Does Moldova have “Left” and “Right” Wing Parties?

A look at party ideology and alignment in international terms

So as the election campaign gets underway it’s time to take a look at one of the more complicated issues in Moldova. Who is on the left and right? This simple categorization is a bit reductive in any country around the world. But it’s very confusing in Moldova. In the media, we hear about the left wing parties as the Socialists and Communists. The Right wing parties are President Sandu’s PAS, Plahotnuic’s Democrats, Platform DA and pretty much anyone who claims to be pro-European. The parties talk about themselves in this way and categorize voters and voting areas as “left wing strongholds'' or “right wing electorate.” But what does any of this mean? To an American or European ear, the idea that the Socialist party, running on a “pro-family” agenda including criminalizing gay propoganda, decriminalizing domestic abuse and demonizing “racially mixed (brown) children” hardly seems like the political left. 

So today we are setting out to understand if these categories have any use in Moldova at all, and what the real ideological divides might be. In order to do this, I sat down with a sociologist and long time political commentator. I’m keeping him anonymous as the interview was done on background. The following article is my own take inspired by the perspective and information I got from someone much smarter than me. 

So first, what is “left and right?” In order to prevent ourselves from getting overly tangled up in these terms, we’re going to use the terms conservative and progressive from here on out. The following chart shows what is a pretty typical political science view of the political spectrum. 

Now before we jump in, I’m going to say up front that I won’t be even attempting to put little dots on this chart representing the major political parties. If you’re interested feel free to read through and create your own chart at the end! I’d welcome your thoughts in the comments. 

Progressives vs Conservatives (Left / Right)

The first thing we have to do is understand the progressive to conservative spectrum in Moldova. Following that we can start to look at where the parties might lie. In Western Europe and America we might loosely define these terms like this:

Progressive - A party or movement that seeks to represent ordinary people in government and support their needs through social programs like free education and welfare. Progressives support taxing the wealthy to curb inequality and generally support socially progressive causes like gay rights, racial equality and environmental action. “Progress” means more representation and more social equality.

Conservative - A party or movement focused on preserving society as it is. These parties are generally pro-business, pro-free markets and anti government intervention. Social issues are organized around resisting changes to the status quo, such as gay rights, resisting including racial consdierations in politics and promoting business over environmental concerns. The movement generally supports the rights of the individual and rejects collective or community approaches that involve government coordination. 

Now, those are really general and quick definitions. In the US in particular we’ve seen a huge redefinition of American conservatism in the Trump years. But the thing we need to do here is boil these ideas down because trying to fit any Moldovan political party into these boxes is futile. For our purposes, “progressive” is a party preaching change and progress while “conservative” is a party seeking to preserve the status quo in some way. When it comes to many of the specific issues mentioned in the definitions above, we’ll come back to them in an issue roundup below. 

Defining Progressive and Conservative in Moldova

In defining progressive and conservative in Moldova the following are the ideas from the political expert interviewed for this article:

Progressive - In Moldova, progressive parties and movements are totally focused on a “changing of the guard.” They look to new ideas, but more importantly new people in power, to see real change come to the country. Specifically, here are a few defining ideas and issues:

1. Change of Faces - Moldova has been politically dominated by a rotating door of the same people for decades. Progressives seek a new political class where older entrenched figures are sent out to retirement and a younger generation takes over. 

2. More Justice - In the last decade, Moldova has seen incredible social and political upheaval due to kleptocratic politicians looting the country. On a low level, people experience corruption on a daily basis in interactions with the state. As we all know, no matter how egregious the crime, no one goes to jail.  Progressives want justice and accountability and a reduction in corruption. 

3. Living European - The younger generation has traveled freely to Europe for years. They see how Moldova’s neighbors live and contrast it with the reality at home. Progressives want European services. From roads to buses to schools, they want their taxes to start building modern infrastructure. And they are exasperated by the feeling that taxes are just stolen and nothing changes. 

Conservative - In Moldova, conservative parties are about preserving the political and business status quo. They do not want to confront the generational change or understand the future that young people talk about in Europe. In many cases this takes the form of Soviet nostalgia and talking of how things were better in days past. But most critically, the conservative parties are made up of a political elite with vested economic interest in the current state who do not wish to give it up. Here are some key ideas and issues for the conservative movement:

1. Change is Dangerous - Moldova needs steady and professional governance. People with experience and not driven by flights of fancy. At a societal level, demographic and social change is threatening a traditional way of life. European ideas like gay rights threaten Moldovan identiy. And while change might be better in the long run, it’s not worth it in the short term. This was best summed up in a quote from a friend “we may be better off in the EU in 20 years, but right now, we are better off with Russia. It’s not worth the wait.”

2. Rebuilding the Lost Past - Conservative parties discuss nostalgically times when there were better social programs, better pensions, better roads. They pledge to return to these times by rebuilding some of the conditions that made them possible. 

So right here, you can already get an idea of where some of the parties might fall. What is really stark is the fact that conservative and progressive are boiled down to their most core ideas. Staying put, or moving forward. The actual details of policy are not as core to the debate happening in Moldova right now. 

Where do the Parties Fall?

So given our definitions of conserative and progressive above, an astute reader of Moldova Matters will probably quickly note that the so-called “left wing” Socialist and Communist Parties are very much conservatives. While the nominally “right wing” PAS party is actually quite progressive. Now it’s important to realize that this does not mean PAS or the Communists have the qualities of either left, right, conservative or progressive that we outlined for Western European or American politics. Just that in the Moldovan spectrum, that’s where they lie. 

So leaving alone the two major parties / blocks. How do the other Parties with a credible shot at Parliament stack up?

Conservatives -

• Shor - Ilian Shor’s “Shor” party is very hard to place on this spectrum. While the party has pretty much zero clear positions, they do have one. To protect and preserve Mr. Shor, his business interests, and his ill gotten gains. In that sense, the Shor party is opposing any change that could threaten him and his entrenched interests. Broadly, that fits our conservative angle - keep things the way they are. 

• Democratic Party PDM - Mr. Plahotnuic’s democratic party is a vanishingly minor player now that the oligarch has fled and is not expected to do well in this election. But for the same reasons as Mr. Shor’s party, we have to consider them conservative. Their electoral campaign is positioning them as a potential partner for PAS (not a likely outcome) that will restrain their more impulsive ideas and be the “adult in the room.” In this way we can see a party that is nominally pro-reform, but constantly pushing a slow rolling policy and protection of current interests. 

Progressives - 

• *crickets* - Pretty much just PAS here. Stefan Gligor’s “Party of Change” might qualify but is currently polling so low as to not require much attention. PAS is essentially a progressive coalition in Moldovan terms and kinda occupies this space alone. 

Something Else? - 

• Platform Dignity and Truth DA - Platform DA was the PAS coalition partner in the last election and I’m sure some readers will wonder why they aren’t in the progressive column. The fact is that DA was formed as a single issue party - “oust Plahotniuc from power.” When this succeeded in June 2019 DA was a bit like the dog who caught the car. They never really evolved the party beyond this. When Mr. Nastasee ran for mayor, he didn’t even publish a program or platform. When he was Minister of Internal Affairs his only major action was having a massive crucifix hung at the entryway and getting the building blessed by the church. As such, DA has some mixed political features but has failed to really define itself. As such I would say they are a single issue party… and they accomplished their defining issue in June 2019. 

• Usati - Mr. Usati is first and foremost a populist. Over his years in politics he has changed issues regularly and he does not fit neatly into a progressive / conservative breakdown. Mr. Usati chose to run in the election as a “Block” of two different parties he created in order to name the block after himself. Politically, this means that his threshold of entering parliament is 7% instead of 5%... just so people would see his name instead of a party name on the ballot. So it’s fair to say Mr. Usati is about one issue - himself.  

• Union of Unionists AUR / PUN - The AUR coalition is by definition a single issue party - Union with Romania. It may be tempting to say “well, that’s one way to affect some pretty major change!” and lump them in with the progressive group. And strictly speaking, in our Moldovan definition, that’s not crazy. But if we dig a little deeper we find other issues. AUR is a Romanian party that just entered Moldova. In Romania they are anti-semetic, anti-vax, Eurosceptic and anti-minority. Now, there are other Unionist parties in the AUR coalition that do not fit this description. But the leader of the coalition has been called by political scientists “fascist.” So it’s hard to lump them in with the “progressives,” and it shows somewhat the limitations of our groupings. 

Libertarians vs Authoritarians

So far in our look at the parties we’ve just looked at the x-axis of the chart above. Let’s briefly explore the y-axis and the spectrum of Libertarian to Authoritarian in party terms. For this, we’re going to try and position the parties on this spectrum based on their positions, issues or the statements of their party leaders. In particular, we will look at parties that more strongly favor individual freedoms and rights (more libertarian) vs parties that favor stronger government control (more authoritarian). Then we’ll look at some formations that we can solidly identify as having strong authoritarian tendencies.

This is a *very* subjective ranking and I’m sure there can be well reasoned disagreements with my points here. If so - please leave in the comments your own thoughts!

More Libertarian - 

• PAS - The PAS party does not openly discuss social issues very often in the campaign. But their focus on European values and the statements of their deputies on key personal liberty issues such as gay rights show the party to have a libertarian approach to citizens rights. 

More Authoritarian -

• PDM - The Party of Democrats espouses a “laissez faire” approach to economics as well as a support for European Values. But Mr. Plahotnuic used the party to personally control the country for years. But at least in their pro-business approach they belong somewhat here in their current formulation, a bit in the middle. 

• PAS - While the PAS approach to individual rights is very libertarian, their views on business are not laissez faire. The PAS Party is running on a platform that seeks to implement justice reform and fight corruption - all of which threatens certain entrenched interests with the long arm of government. This is a kind of “Teddy Roosevelt” progressivism - pro citizen, anti-monopoly and anti corruption. And they are willing to expand state intervention to accomplish these goals. 

Very Authoritarian - 

• Socialists / Communist Block - The Socialists and Communists have made many choices large and small that favor a strong man approach to government. Mr. Dodon’s protracted fight with President Sandu to prevent elections and maintain power is but one example. More recently, Mr. Dodon announced that he personally procured 100,000 doses of the Sputnik Vaccine from Russia. Announcements like this he regularly makes on his TV show “The President (former) is Responsible” in which he presents himself, a private citizen, as the mover and shaker behind many actions of the government. Something that is not untrue. When we add in his recent visit to Belarus that seemed only designed to publicly support Lukashenko’s brutal crackdown and theft of an election, things seem pretty clear. The Socialist Party takes a very authoritarian approach to government. 

• Usati - Mr. Usati is a political chameleon who currently calls himself an anti-corruption crusader and a supporter of European integration. But in the past Mr. Usati has also sought to associate himself with President Lukashenko of Belarus. In his party newspaper the headline “Moldova needs its own Lukashenko! Moldova needs Usati!” was a rallying cry not so many years ago. Given that Lukashenko is, and has been, a brutal dictator, it seems fair to say that Usati’s vision for Moldova is fairly authoritarian with him at the top. 

• AUR - While AUR has many coalition partners that probably deserve other spots in this spectrum, AUR itself is a European Far-Right party that we can credibly say promotes far right ethno nationalism. There’s not much more to say than that. 

You may have noticed that I left Platform DA and the Shor Party off this list. In the first case, Platform DA simply does not have enough clear positions to understand how they would govern. In the second, Shor is certainly an authoritarian figure in his party, but his main motivation in politics is to stay out of jail. So it’s hard to say the Shor party has authoritarian ambitions. It is however possible to say that Shor would support any authoritarian or anyone else that supports Shor. 

What About That Issue I Care About?

Ok, so you’ve gotten this far in our exploration of the parties. I suspect some of you are thinking this is frustrating! None of this really explains the issues I care about! Well, that’s fair. The issues that drive politics in the US and Western Europe don’t always have any salience here. But just for fun, let’s do a roundup of some top international issues and where Moldovan parties do or don’t stand on them. 

Culture Wars

Culture wars have been roiling American and European politics for some years. What about Moldova? Well, as we’ve discussed previously on Moldova Matters the Socialists and Communist Block is making culture wars an essential part of their messaging. This takes the form of opposing gay rights, lifting up the traditional family (including decriminalizing domestic abuse), and adding a xenophobic element to the disussion with worries about “brown” children taking over the country. Broadly speaking, this is a message that aligns with the messages in Russian propaganda supporting a specific worldview. 

Meanwhile, the PAS Party doesn’t take much of a public stand on any of these issues. In a sense they are letting the Socialists get very worked up about these supposed cultural threats and the PAS talks about generational change, jobs and corruption. 

So while culture wars are salient in the campaign, it’s really only for one party. 

Inequality

While inequality is a major topic of discussion around the world, it is non-existent in Moldovan politics. Possibly this is because there are no real economically left wing parties in Moldova at all (more on that below). Moldova is a deeply unequal country where you can find more Teslas and Land Rovers on the streets of Chisinau than most other European Capitals. At the same time, horse carts are more dominant than cars in many villages. But the frame of inequality is almost never used in political conversation in Moldova. 

Taxes, Spending and Debt

No parties discuss taxes and spending in campaigns almost at all. Occasionally, a party may promise tax relief for a certain sector or to adjust the formula for calculating taxes on a certain good. But at a big picture level taxes are neither talked about as good and necessary or something to lower. They aren’t talked about at all. 

Debt is also an issue that is avoided at all costs. Moldova borrows lots of money from Europe and the IMF but until recently hasn’t issued its own bonds on public markets. As such, all issues of debt are wrapped up in foriegn relations. Even the Socialists do not attack these issues since they know Moldova cannot survive without this money. 

Now spending, surely they talk about that! Well here, yes we do have a political issue. The “Budget” is much discussed in terms of keeping the deficit down. But mostly it’s talked about in terms of what the Government cannot do. The Budget is treated as a thing unto itself rather than policy. So “we can’t afford that” is never accompanied by a question or tax policy or debt policy or cutting other spending, but simply a statement of fact meant to end a conversation. 

Social Programs

Social programs make regular appearances in Moldovan politics in the form of pensions. The lowest pension in Moldova is only around $40 / month - absolutely inadequate to live on. In order to court the votes of older citizens every party promises to raise pensions in just about every election… and none of them do. This issue has become less of a policy point than a voter bribery point with Governments sending $20 Easter bonuses in the pensions and things like that. 

Beyond talk of pensions, health care and other programs are rarely discussed at a national level. Everyone knows they need reform, but the reforms are likely to be painful. So they are not seen as campaign issues. 

Race

While much of the west is undergoing a racial reckoning, Moldova has pretty much let that issue just slide right by. It may be tempting to say that is because there is no racial diversity in Moldova. But that’s not really true. There is a large Roma population that faces historical discrimination. Furthermore, Moldova has a very fraught history with the Jewish population in the country dating back to long before the second world war. So this is not to say there are no issues to speak about, just that no political groups have brought these issues into the national dialog. Many parties have Roma and Jewish representatives and there seems to be a cross party consensus not to open up that particular can of worms. 

That said, this may change with the introduction of AUR which has an openly ethno-nationalist stance in Romania. None of this has yet come to Moldovan politics, but we’ll have to wait and see if that will change as the campaign progresses. 

Migration Crisis and Immigration

Now when we speak about race above, you’ll note that we did not speak about immigration. Moldova faces a major demographic crisis as 25% of the population has left the country in the last 30 years. A trend expected to continue if not accelerate. Politicians such as Mr. Voronin have brought race explicitly into this conversation with statements about NATO bringing “brown children” into Moldova. In the past, the Socialists have also accused President Sandu of wanting to bring 30,000 Syrians to Moldova as immigrants (a claim with no basis in fact). In this sense, we do have racial politics in the Moldovan political discourse, particularly focused at potential immigration from Muslim countries. Right now there is very little such immigration to speak of, but experts who think immigration could help solve Moldova’s demographic crisis admit that the most likely immigrants to Moldova would be from the Muslim world. So this is a hot-button issue with the conservative parties but it does not really represent a major campaign issue as no one is suggesting increased immigration at all. It’s more like a hot potato that the progressives want to deflect and the conservatives want to use in a culture war food fight. 

Bound up in the immigration issue is the question of the Diaspora. In recent elections, the Moldovan Diaspora has become a major voting block that largely supports President Sandu and the PAS party. This has led the Socialists to criticise the diaspora and attack them as “unpatriotic” for leaving the country. Meanwhile, the progressive parties lift up the diaspora for both their economic contributions (remittances power the national economy) and the idea that those who come back bring important international experience and perspective. 

Drug Enforcement / Legalization

While marijuana legalization is moving rapidly as a political fait accompli in the United States, Moldova, like most of Europe, has been slow to consider this political issue at a high level. The Socialist party has adopted a “tough on drugs tough on crime” stance that lines up with their general conservative outlook. But no party has spoken even in guarded tones about legalization or decriminalization. 

While the US conversation on this issue is often driven by the injustice of locking people up for drug offenses, Moldova has almost no one in prison for this reason.  Marijuana is widely available in Moldova but people who are arrested for possession can almost always get out with the payment of a small bribe. In this way,  Moldova has an almost de facto decriminalization by means of corruption. Without a large prison population calling for justice, the political incentive to legalize or decriminalize is absent and the issue can safely be ignored. 

Conclusions - What’s Missing?

While this article has gotten very long indeed it’s important to call out the elephant in the room. There is something missing from everything we have talked about. That something is any semblance of progressive / left wing economics. You can see this through the absence of real discussions about tax policy or inequality. There is no party in Moldova that brings a progressive perspective to economic issues. 

This is a problem. You don’t have to support progressive economic ideas to know that a healthy dialog needs multiple perspectives. Right now, parties in Government struggle with balancing the budget by increasing or decreasing payroll taxes by a bit. But no one talks about Moldova lacking a marginal tax system. This means that people earning minimum wage and the wealthiest citizens all pay around a 38% tax on income. No one discusses the fact that the wealthiest class of wage earners in the country could not possibly build and own the million dollar homes that dot Chisinau. No one talks about how the streets are dotted with Landrovers of dubious origin but also dotted with potholes. 

This also means that Moldova has no real Conservative or Libertarian economic issues in politics. The conservative (small c) status quo is pretty much to just leave things as they are. So lacking progressive economic voices also means a lack of conservative ideas as well. 

At the end of the day, Moldova has an evolving political ideological spectrum. And there are very good reasons that many issues that are salient in Western Capitals are just not very important here. But when we step back, the biggest gap in the political discussion has to be economic policy and no current parties are filling that conversation space.