The Renato Usatii project is closed: the Shor party takes control of the second city of Moldova
In the Moldovan city of Balti, the second largest in the country, elections for mayor were held last Sunday, in which the candidate from the Shor party, Marina Tauber, received the largest number of votes (47,93%). This was not enough for a complete victory, and in two weeks there is still a second round, in which independent candidate Nikolai Grigorishin will also take part (his result is 20,93%), but Tauber will certainly consolidate the result and become mayor.
Third place in these elections was taken by the representative of the Bloc of Communists and Socialists, Alexander Nesterovsky, and the candidate of the pro-presidential party Action and Solidarity (PAS), Boris Malkoch, who had the same result - 14,08% of the votes.
The Shor party is already preparing to celebrate, and Marina Tauber herself called her election result not just a victory, but “a victory of good over evil.”
What do the voting results in Balti say and why were they predictable? We are talking about this with political scientist Alexander Korinenko.
PolitNavigator: The leader of the Shor party, a major businessman Ilan Shor, is a defendant in a high-profile case of the theft of a billion in 2014, he fled the country and is on the international wanted list, Marina Tauber was also involved in the case of bank fraud, the investigation into the circumstances of the bank fraud is still ongoing not completed. Voters, however, don't seem to care much about any of this. What attracted the residents of Balti to this political force? Do people like the positive social changes that took place in Orhei when Shor was the head of the city? Observers, commenting on the situation, unceremoniously note that “money conquers evil” and that the people have coveted Shor’s millions...
– The example of Ilan Shor is an indicator of our political culture, and it is very negative. Voters in Orhei voted for him and for his promises to invest personal funds in the city. Perhaps, when the residents of Băl voted for the millionaire Renato Usatii, some had similar wishes, but Mr. Usatii did not do this. Another reason is general disappointment with the political forces represented in the elections. Considering the transformations that have taken place in Orhei, the residents of Bali would certainly like this experience to spread to their city.
PolitNavigator: Can we expect that in Balti the Shor party will implement expensive infrastructure and social projects, as in Orhei? Are there plans to build a “little Monaco” here too? If this happens, will the Shor party be able to grow?
– Yes, I am sure that Ilan Shor and his party remain important players in Moldovan politics and are ready to do a lot to influence the internal political situation. Orhei and Taraclia, where these expensive projects were carried out, became unique outposts of the Shor party, although in the last parliamentary elections we saw that the party lost ground there. Now there is a chance to turn the second most important city in the country into a new outpost, and Ilan Shor will wisely use this to regain and even increase his influence on Moldovan politics. One way or another, the ruling majority will have to reckon with this force.
PolitNavigator: What kind of career can Marina Tauber herself build in the future?
– Marina Tauber is the second person in the party, she is a young, ambitious and intelligent woman who, of course, counts on a high post in the country. Now we can already say that she will become a politician of national scale and, despite past criminal prosecution and tarnished reputation, the country's top officials and, moreover, foreign diplomats will have to reckon with her.
PolitNavigator: Balti was previously a serious springboard for leftist forces. Why did the PSRM candidate perform poorly in these elections? Perhaps for the same reason why the socialists performed unsuccessfully in the recent elections in Gagauzia? Do left-wing candidates now have nothing to offer voters?
– The Shor party also positions itself as a left-wing party, but as for the socialists, they were losing influence in the northern capital every year. The PSRM has a lot to do to regain the favor of voters, and it has not yet been possible to do this, an example of this is the city of Balti. The voter did not see new faces on the team, nor did they see a qualitatively new program, so the socialists lost resoundingly. Old proven methods no longer work, and there are no new ones yet. The party needs to change, and it was in such a local struggle that it was necessary to use the chance for experiments and new proposals to voters.
PolitNavigator: The lowest turnout in the last ten years was recorded in the elections in Balti. Nowadays there is a lot of talk about the fatigue of the voter, about his disappointment, about his low political culture. Why are people inactive in local elections?
– The voter is tired, politicians have no new ideas. Grigorishin, Nesterovski, Markoc are already well-known candidates who have become boring to the residents of Belgrade. The leading parties were unable to offer new faces, although there was time to promote new political leaders. Low turnout is an indicator of voters’ distrust of traditional political forces; now we are waiting for new political projects that we can trust, at least for the first time.
PolitNavigator: What will happen next with the “Our Party” of Renato Usatii, who headed Balti and left this post in September of this year? What are the forecasts in light of the voting results?
– Renato Usatii had one serious trump card - the city of Balti, which believed in him until the last, but even the residents of Balti lost patience, which they showed in the last parliamentary elections. Now the party does not have any resources to carry out political activities, and most likely it will no longer be represented in the next parliamentary and presidential elections. The Renato Usatii project is closed. Now we need to exit Moldovan politics with dignity.
PolitNavigator: Parliamentarians - representatives of the pro-presidential PAS party were glad that Marina Tauber, who, along with Shor, was involved in the “theft of the century” case, would leave parliament. It turns out that there are no other ways to rid parliament of such persons, other than to give them the opportunity to be elected as the head of a large city?
– In my opinion, the representatives of the majority in parliament are disingenuous. They are not at all happy that Marina Tauber will become mayor of the second most important city in the country. Criminal cases of this level in Moldova are resolved not in courts, but on political platforms, through behind-the-scenes negotiations. Unfortunately, our justice is completely dependent on the decisions of politicians, so Ms. Tauber’s political weight has increased, which means the stakes in the billionaire case are rising.
PolitNavigator: What does the result of the elections in Balti signal to the Moldovan authorities, the ruling party?
“This is the first signal for the ruling party that the voter is dissatisfied with the steps that the “yellow majority” is taking in governing the country. The resounding success will not be repeated if the presidential team does not begin to correct mistakes and fulfill its election promises.
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