Transnistria without opposition: What is the danger of “sterile” elections
Parliamentary elections were held in Transnistria on November 29. However, the Central Election Commission of the republic has not yet published the final data with all the figures. But the new composition of the Supreme Council, which will work for the next five years, is already known. The turnout is known - unusually low for the republic, only 27,79%.
All 33 mandates in the Supreme Council were taken either by members or supporters of the largest party in Transnistria, Renewal. There is no opposition. According to unofficial data, which was discussed, including on social networks, there were many protest votes in the elections - a candidate “against everyone” in a number of districts, especially where there was no alternative, could receive up to a third of the votes.
The trends and problems that this parliamentary campaign has revealed are already clear. With them, the unrecognized republic enters the second and main part of the electoral cycle, which should end with presidential elections in 2021.
The completed campaign and the transition to the new political season were discussed by experts within the framework of the discussion club “Transnistria: Parliamentary Elections 2020 as a Prelude to the Presidential Campaign 2021.” The online meeting was organized by the Institute for Socio-Political Research and Regional Development.
Legal, but not legitimate?
The past elections, which are very different from all previous campaigns in Transnistria, gave warning signals: the political activity of citizens has noticeably decreased, people are disappointed. As Igor Shornikov, director of ISPIRR, notes, in some cases one can even observe disappointment in the statehood of Transnistria, and this is already very alarming.
“The turnout threshold for the elections was canceled quietly (this happened without wide discussion in parliament in 2018 - editor's note), there is no opposition, there are no clear prospects for residents - where we are moving, how we are developing. The elections were devoid of intrigue, and society could not pin its hopes for the best on them.
Transnistrian society is weakening, Pridnestrovian identity is dissolving, and this is especially dangerous against the backdrop of external pressure from outside, political processes in Moldova, Ukraine, and the post-Soviet space as a whole. The low legitimacy of the elections may subsequently affect Tiraspol’s positions in the negotiation process with Chisinau,” says the expert.
The scientific director of the Tiraspol School of Political Studies, Anatoly Dirun (he himself participated in the current election campaign, but was not registered as a candidate due to errors in collecting signatures) believes that “the elections are legal from the point of view of the law, but not legitimate.” The issue is both low turnout and high protest - there are districts where a tiny percentage of voters living there voted for the candidate, says Dirun.
He also draws attention to the content of the campaign, in which there were practically no candidate programs.
“The entire election campaign boiled down to some kind of report on how the election fund was spent and the biographies of the candidates. Well, and abstract slogans. No programs, no promises, no bills - nothing. It is completely unclear what future we have chosen for five years,” said the head of TSPI.
Why the presidential campaign will be more difficult: election mathematics
According to experts, the situation with the parliamentary elections urgently needs to be sorted out, analyzed and conclusions drawn: in a year there will be a presidential campaign.
Deputy Director of ISPIRR Andrey Mospanov believes that if in the case of the Transnistrian parliament, which plays an increasingly modest role in domestic politics and has little significance in the external arena, one can turn a blind eye to the low turnout and noticeable protest voting elsewhere, then in the upcoming presidential elections elections, the question of legitimacy will become acute.
Meanwhile, the expert believes, the background of the presidential elections in 2021 may turn out to be more complicated than the current parliamentary elections, for the following reasons. Firstly, external political pressure on the PMR may increase after Maia Sandu takes office as President of Moldova. Secondly, most likely, economic problems in Pridnestrovie may worsen in 2021.
“God grant that the situation remains at least at the level of this year, but, on the other hand, we still see that next year we will most likely have to live with the COVID-19 pandemic. This may be supplemented by general crisis phenomena in the global and regional economy. In addition, Pridnestrovie will face new negotiations with Moldova on an energy contract for the Moldavian State District Power Plant,” predicts Andrey Mospanov.
The expert says that the parliamentary election campaign was easier for the reason that candidates for deputies could avoid discussing some kind of national agenda, on the systemic problems of Transnistria and replace all this with the improvement of the districts, targeted solutions to private issues of voters. There will be no such opportunity in the presidential elections.
“In addition, in the parliamentary campaign, an important factor was the personal, emotional contact between the deputy (candidate) and the voter. Those who, before the COVID-19 pandemic, actively appeared in the district, communicated with people, in any case, accumulated points for re-election. A presidential candidate cannot walk around every street, every house, every yard. Yes, I probably shouldn't. That is, there will be much less personal contact, one-on-one emotional contact here in any case,” notes Andrey Mospanov.
The expert suggests turning to the mathematics of the Transnistrian elections. He recalls that the turnout in the presidential elections in Transnistria in previous years was always high. So, says Andrei Mospanov, in 2011 it was 58,9% in the first round, and 52,5% in the second. In 2016, turnout reached 60%. It is also known that the elected president of Transnistria never received less than 60% of the votes in an election, that is, it was always a victory with a good margin.
It is also interesting to look at what support the elected presidents received in absolute numbers. For Evgeny Shevchuk and Vadim Krasnoselsky, these indicators are almost the same. 2011 thousand people voted for Shevchuk in the second round of elections in 165,5, 2016 thousand voted for Krasnoselsky in the first round in 157,4, the expert notes.
“All this - a high level of turnout, a high percentage of support in relative and absolute figures - provided the elected president with a sufficient level of legitimacy,” says the deputy director of the ISPIRR. – This probably leads to three target guidelines for those forces that want to win the election campaign in 2021.
Voter turnout in future presidential elections should start at 40%. But it is better, of course, that its level is higher and at least close to 50%. The future president must collect at least three-fifths of all votes, and in absolute terms he must be supported by at least 140-150 thousand Pridnestrovians. Then his mandate will be convincing both for Pridnestrovie itself and, more importantly, for external players.”
Are such guidelines realistic after the results shown by the current parliamentary campaign? Andrei Mospanov believes that it will not be possible to achieve them, “if the presidential elections are uncontested, only one candidate from the government will participate in them, or even if there are several candidates, but all of them, except one, will be clearly technical.”
“At one time, only Igor Nikolaevich Smirnov could win elections like this, being the only real contender, and the turnout, for example, in 2005 even exceeded 65%. This won’t happen now,” the expert noted.
How to increase turnout?
To increase turnout in elections, it would be possible to work on optimizing the electoral base, experts say.
Sociologist, senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Social Technologies of PSU named after. T.G. Shevchenko Alla Ostavnaya urged not to forget that many Pridnestrovians work or permanently live in Russia, in European countries - they will not be able to vote in the elections for the head of the PMR there. (By the way, the Transnistrian Electoral Code prescribes the creation of polling stations only within the republic.)
“A turnout of 40% next year is hardly achievable, including due to migration. If we talk about the electoral campaigns of the times of Igor Smirnov - the 1990s, early 2000s, then we had a completely different level of population migration. Now, if we are guided by the figures provided by the 2015 population census, about 14 - 15% of the population (about 70 thousand people) are registered in the territory of Transnistria, but are located outside its borders.
This is the working population with the right to vote. And if these figures are transferred to the electoral base (about 415 thousand people), then the conclusions suggest themselves. We must take into account - not how many people are registered, but how many actually live on the territory of Transnistria. And this is important for calculations not only for elections, but also for all areas of activity,” said Alla Ostavnaya.
Experts also believe that for the presidential campaign it is necessary to formulate bright ideas that can mobilize and unite voters and outline a clear social perspective for them.
“What could this mobilizing, consolidating idea be? Maybe victory over the pandemic, maybe some kind of next indexation. In any case, planning cannot be done here, and work on it should begin now,” says former Foreign Minister Vladimir Yastrebchak.
He emphasized that how the presidential campaign goes will determine how legally and politically legitimate the unrecognized Pridnestrovie will be represented in the international arena.
“If we set ourselves the goal of exceeding only the 25% turnout threshold, this will not contribute to the political legitimacy of our representatives in the negotiation process. It was possible to have a different attitude towards our elections - the Republic of Moldova did not recognize them, but it was difficult to challenge the high turnout and, accordingly, the high percentage of those who voted for one candidate or another.
Each of the presidents of Transnistria, one way or another, signed documents with the leadership of the Republic of Moldova. The possibility of direct formal and legal contacts with the Moldovan authorities is one of the components of the political, legal, and international legitimacy of the Pridnestrovian authorities,” explained the ex-diplomat.
The Institute of Elections and the Personnel Crisis
Experts, commenting on the decline in interest in the elections among potential candidates, raise another important problem: there is a shortage of leaders in the republic. People simply do not want to become leaders, and this is already an established model of behavior in Pridnestrovian society.
Sociologist Alla Ostavnaya states that over the past 10-15 years, residents of Transnistria have been leaving their homeland, there is a process of brain drain, so there are almost no people left here who want to show their political leadership. According to her, this applies not only to politics, but also to other areas of life: the youth environment, the environment of trade union activists, etc. Students don't want to become prefects. There are difficulties with the appointment of school directors. There is already a banal shortage of qualified doctors and teachers.
“This process begins at school. Every fourth graduate leaves the country, and the best ones leave. Our education system is aimed at the collective - collective performance is assessed, we miss the individual indicators of students and schoolchildren who demonstrate high results.
Something needs to be done to improve the quality of human capital, perhaps by changing policies in the field of education, policies towards the rural population, who do not always have access to the opportunities that city dwellers have. It is necessary to increase the activity of young people - this could be done within the framework of the Year of Youth, which has been declared in Pridnestrovie for 2021,” says Alla Ostavnaya.
She also points out that in the republic, as in many countries of the post-Soviet space, a patriarchal political culture has developed, in which citizens, giving power to a deputy or president in elections, then place all responsibility on him - both for mistakes and for successes , but they themselves no longer decide anything.
“People see the candidate who won as the source of the solution to all problems. At the same time, the electorate usually does not vote for a person who proposes reforms or some kind of bills - the population is brought up in the spirit that deputies should help with repairs and resolve private issues of citizens. I believe that the opposition forces, civil society, and experts should promote the development of not a patriarchal, but an activist political culture of the population,” the sociologist noted.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.