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PP RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA
RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHNP RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSK RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHCH #0273/01 0931556
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 031556Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY CHISINAU
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7840
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 CHISINAU 000273 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/UMB, DRL/AE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM PREL MD
SUBJECT: Post Meets Disaffected Politicians in All 
32 Districts of Moldova 
 
Sensitive but Unclassified.  Please Protect 
Accordingly. 
 
REF:  Chisinau 268 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: In the run-up to the April 5 
parliamentary elections in Moldova, Pol/Econ 
officers visited all 32 raions to meet members of 
political parties and to assess the overall 
conduct of the campaign.  The political parties 
all reported that they had been actively engaged 
in reaching out to voters.  We sensed tremendous 
frustration with the ruling party at the raion 
level and the Party of Communists (PCRM)- 
controlled central government.  Opposition 
interlocutors attacked pervasive corruption, 
misuse of administrative resources, and 
intimidation tactics used by those in power 
especially the police and fiscal-inspection powers 
controlled by the central government.  They also 
reported that the electorate appeared confused and 
intimidated.  While many felt the results would be 
too close to call, some of those we spoke to 
expected that anti-PCRM parties, combined, would 
win a greater number of seats than the PCRM in 
Parliament after April 5.  End Summary. 
 
Methodology 
------------ 
 
¶2. (U) To standardize our research, we used the 
same set of questions in each raion visit:  what 
is distinctive about this raion?  How is the 
campaign going?  What problems have occurred? 
What methods are you using to reach voters?  What 
specific effects of the global economic crisis are 
you seeing?   What is your prognosis for the 
outcome of the elections? 
 
Recovering from the Soviet Hangover 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶3. (SBU) Moldova is emerging from the shadow of 
its Soviet past, and while it is not a fully 
democratized country, it is not an authoritarian 
state either.  (Note:  The accusations we recorded 
are impossible to verify, but the numbers and 
consistency of the accusations countrywide appear 
to enhance their validity.  End note).  People 
fear law-enforcement authorities, whose presence 
at campaign rallies serves as a reminder of the 
government's watchful eye.  Authorities also have 
been known to conduct drawn-out administrative 
checks on businesses and make "invitations" to 
police stations to discuss matters.  Public 
workersQmostly doctors, teachers, professors, and 
inspectorsQare told that they must attend PCRM 
rallies and meetings if they want to keep their 
jobs.  State officials, including Members of 
Parliament and high Government of Moldova 
officials, use state resources, such as official 
cell phones and cars, to support the PCRM 
campaign. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) On the positive side of the ledger, 
opposition parties have been actively holding 
rallies and meetings, talking with voters, and 
spreading their messages door-to-door.  They have 
been putting up their campaign posters and 
billboards in cities and villages, and openly 
criticizing authority.  Some expect to land seats 
in the parliament. 
 
Parties Face Campaign Limitations 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) In almost every raion, participants 
complained about the lack of space for their 
partyQs posters, and about other parties putting 
posters on top of theirs.  According to the 
regulations, campaign posters are only permitted 
on designated placard frames that are often too 
small to enable all parties to hang a poster. 
Party activists therefore feel forced, or 
provoked, to place their posters in illegal places 
such as telephone poles, and court police 
responses with a certain sense of righteousness. 
 
 
 
CHISINAU 00000273  002 OF 004 
 
 
¶6. (SBU) Some party members we met spoke of 
difficulties in conducting their campaigns, both 
in their ability to hold meetings and in getting 
their message out.  The PCRM has gone to great 
lengths to hamper the opposition parties' ability 
to campaign through tactics that border on the 
quasi-legal:  denying permission to use public 
buildings such as schools for campaign meetings; 
distributing "aid" in the form of sugar, firewood, 
and oil; and indirectly threatening opposition 
members with job loss.  There have only been a few 
cases of truly illegal behavior, and the PCRM has 
been careful to limit these incidents.  The most 
severe case we heard involved one raion PPCD party 
member's brother, who was brutally beaten.  (Note: 
Again, we have no empirical evidence to back up 
such charges.  End note.)  Local police reportedly 
failed to respond.  A criminal case was opened. 
Four different prosecutors in succession had been 
assigned to and then taken off the case.  We were 
made aware of only a few cases where violence was 
used, but even one or two known instances could be 
effective in intimidating voters and preventing 
them from lodging formal complaints with the 
Central Election Commission (CEC). 
 
¶7. (SBU) The ruling party in many of the raions 
has effectively impeded the opposition parties' 
access to voters.  Numerous party representatives 
throughout the country expressed frustration at 
the obstacles they faced in educating voters. Some 
complained that people were not attending 
opposition-sponsored rallies and meetings, though 
it was not clear if this was because of fear of 
the authorities or ineffective outreach.  And 
because of parties' limited access to the media 
(especially national broadcast media from which 
most voters get their information) and the 
prohibitively high cost of TV air time, door-to- 
door campaigning has been the common way to reach 
voters in all of the raions.  We heard 
overwhelmingly that parties had to compete for the 
extremely limited space on official billboards. 
Furthermore, party representatives in some raions 
criticized the ruling party for preventing free 
access to public buildings to use for campaign 
meetings leaving them with the only alternative of 
congregating outdoors which, in winter, reduced 
attendance.  Where opposition parties such as the 
Our Moldova AllianceQAMNQwere in charge of 
villages and raions, activists lodged similar 
charges against AMN authorities.  In other raions, 
such as Causeni and Soroca, where a high level of 
political maturity and inter-party cooperation are 
evident, party members noted that they had been 
able to hold their meetings in schools after the 
school day was over.  Some parties chose to use 
private facilities for their meetings with voters, 
such as a restaurant or other hall. 
 
¶8. (SBU) The most blatant incidents came up in 
raions where people were most aware of their 
democratic rights and exercised their freedom of 
expression.  In these areas, such as the PCRM- 
controlled Balti, right-bank Moldova's second 
largest city, the Ministry of Interior and 
security services have allegedly worked alongside 
local police to harass and intimidate voters and 
party members.  In several cases, parties reported 
incidents of harassment by law enforcement of the 
business sector.  Several raions reported that the 
ruling party had targeted businessmen, many of 
whom were active opposition party members, and 
created legal and financial headaches for the 
businesses.  The numbers of random audits have 
increased substantially in recent months, and tax 
authorities visit some businesses two to three 
times in one month. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Some of the criticisms we heard against 
the ruling party seemed petty, leaving the 
impression that certain opposition members were 
complainers, not doers.  For example, some 
opposition party representatives complained that 
their party was not allowed to hold meetings in 
schools.  They then admitted that they had not 
even bothered to ask for permission to hold such a 
meeting, as they were sure it would have been 
 
CHISINAU 00000273  003 OF 004 
 
 
denied.  Other party reps sitting at the same 
table reported they had no problem using the 
schools.  Generally, in most raions, the 
opposition has been able to stage unimpeded 
rallies and meetings with voters, and to run paid 
advertisements in the press. 
 
¶10. (SBU) On a positive note, the Central Election 
Commission (CEC) has been responsive to our 
requests for greater transparency.  We were 
initially concerned that results would not be 
posted at each district election commission before 
the district sent vote totals to the CEC, leaving 
open the possibility for vote rigging.  The CEC 
has agreed to make the tallying of the results 
transparent at all levels of vote counting, from 
the precinct to the district to the national 
level. 
 
Expected Economic Crisis on Hold for Now 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) Across the board, in every raion, 
participants in our meetings described their raion 
in terms of the high number of working-age 
population who had left the country, the lack of 
jobs at home, and the grinding poverty.  However, 
the economy is likely to have little effect on how 
people vote.  Voters were frustrated with the 
level of poverty, corruption and lack of jobs, and 
even though many blamed the Party of Communists' 
poor governance, they are apathetic and feel 
helpless in their ability to affect political 
change, not to mention the fear of doing so. 
 
¶12. (SBU) Almost everyone provided anecdotal or 
statistical evidence of the negative effects of 
the global economic crisis, usually mentioning 
discouraged migrants who have returned after 
losing jobs, layoffs in local companies, and low 
prices for agricultural produce.  The more cynical 
noted that, because Moldova has no economy to 
speak of, the damage would be relatively minor. 
The raions' party representatives said each raion 
was feeling the effects of the economic crisis as 
exhibited primarily by a return of migrants, 
mostly from Russia, though also from Europe. 
Remittances are down, and many local businesses 
are feeling the pinch.  All aspects of the local 
economy have been hard hit, and most people think 
the situation will get worse before it gets 
better. 
 
¶13. (SBU) Our interlocutors' predictions were more 
hopeful and positive than their accounts of the 
campaign.  The general consensus was that four 
parties would certainly make the six percent 
threshold, with the following estimated results: 
PCRM (30 percent plus or minus five), and the 
Liberal Party, Liberal Democratic Party, and AMN 
somewhere in the low teens. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶14. (SBU) Many people nationwide are disenchanted 
with the PCRM. They realize that, with a 
deteriorating economy, loss of jobs, ongoing 
emigration of Moldovans and increasingly unchecked 
executive-branch power, the PCRM is not the agent 
that will bring needed changed.  The PCRM, though, 
is making the case that stability is what Moldova 
needs.  Campaign ads feature a young woman with 
her infant and the slogan "I am voting for 
stability."  The PCRM is covering its rhetorical 
bets with other posters touting "Change for the 
Better." 
 
¶15. (SBU) A change in governance may bring an 
improvement:  a stronger judiciary, legislature 
and media to check the formidable power of the 
executive; more rule of law; hope that younger 
leaders will modernize Moldova more quickly; and 
less economic gangsterism.  On the other hand, a 
change in ruling party(ies) may bring to power a 
weak, ineffectual opposition coalition that gets 
little done.  These elections are important. 
 
 
CHISINAU 00000273  004 OF 004 
 
 
Chaudhry