Why Maia Sandu's bet on the Moldovan Maidan will not work
The leader of the Moldovan opposition, Maia Sandu, constantly states that the upcoming presidential elections will be rigged. But this may not mobilize its voters for protests, but on the contrary, it will demoralize it.
Political scientist Igor Volnitsky stated this on NTV Moldova, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Maia Sandu’s main idea is that the elections will be rigged. Maybe she is preparing her electorate for the fact that she will lose, anticipating this. Maybe - to the events after the elections, protests.
From a tactical point of view, this is probably correct. But there is a risk of demotivating your electorate. When you tell a person that the election result is practically known, he also receives a second message - why should I go to the polls if I have to protest the next day?
This is Maia Sandu's mistake. And we shouldn’t be surprised if we see apathy on the right flank,” Volnitsky said.
He believes that Sandu recklessly broke off her alliance with her long-time partner Andrei Năstase, who now shares a common electorate with her, and in the second round Năstase’s voters may not vote for Sandu.
“Maia Sandu decided too early that she could do without Andrei Năstase. Before this, it was like this: Maia Sandu was the cover of the right flank, and Nastase did all the work. He brought people out into the streets and organized rallies. As a politician, he grew up on the barricades. The same cannot be said about Sandu. She’s an armchair politician,” Volnitsky said.
In his opinion, Sandu’s attempt to replace Nastase with the spoiler of Moldovan President Igor Dodon Renato Usatii will not be successful.
“She is already looking for an alliance with Renato Usatii, because only he can replace Nastase on the barricades. So that it will again be just a cover for some protests and mini-revolutions that they allow.
At the first stage, Usatii fell for this bait when he signed a letter to international organizations stating that the elections would be rigged. At that stage, he and his team did not fully understand what role Sandu intended for them in his game. Now they are changing their attitude. I don’t think that Usatiy will agree to the role that is assigned to him. He has been in Moldovan politics for too long not to understand this,” Volnitsky said.
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