/ world today news/ Moldovan President Maya Sandu announced on Sunday her plans to run for office again in the 2024 elections. However, she is unlikely to be satisfied with the latest public opinion polls: they show a significant drop in her popularity among voters . And there are many reasons for this.
„A few years ago, together we started the path to making Moldova a better country. During the three years of the mandate, we managed to keep the peace at home, to strengthen the independence of the country, we have a government close to the people, we also managed to start negotiations on the accession of Moldova to the European Union… I made a commitment to do everything in my power to to fulfill the mission of European integration. We still have many important steps to take and I am ready to continue if you have the confidence to get a new mandate in 2024.”
With these words, Moldovan President Maya Sandu addressed the Moldovan people on Sunday on the occasion of the third anniversary of his inauguration. And she made it clear that she wanted to reapply for the position.
In this context, a sociological survey conducted recently by the Institute for Marketing and Sociological Research on behalf of the Moldovan company “Public Media” gave interesting results. The survey was conducted from November 29 to December 16, 954 people were interviewed, and the results were published on December 19. According to the survey, Sandu’s popularity in the country has declined significantly. In the next elections, about 30% of Moldovans are ready to vote for her. Another 24% of respondents will support the former president of the country, Igor Dodon. The top three is closed by the mayor of Chisinau, Ion Ceban, with 8% of the votes.
If there is a second round of elections, then sympathies are divided as follows: 46% of voters will vote for Igor Dodon, 35% for Sandu. Let’s recall that in the presidential elections in 2020 in the second round, Sandu collected 57.7%. In addition, in June 2021, 39% of the population of Moldova trusts it. Since then, the president’s approval rating has begun to decline.
What caused such an outpouring of popular sympathy from the until recently beloved Sandu, a typical “European princess”, manager of the new generation of politicians in post-Soviet countries? After becoming president in 2020, Sandu won a landslide victory for his Action and Solidarity party two years later and strengthened Moldova’s rapprochement with the West, after which the country was awarded EU candidate status.
But not everyone likes this vector of the country’s development. After becoming openly pro-Western, Moldova also became openly anti-Russian.
During the Ukrainian conflict, Chisinau started talking about the “Russian threat” and reducing its ties with the CIS. In particular, in May 2023, Sandu accused Russia of trying to “overthrow” the Moldovan authorities. At the same time, the opposition, including the Socialist Party of former president Igor Dodon, believes that the state leadership is acting on the orders of “Western patrons.”
Already in December 2021, exactly a year after Sandu took office, Moldovans evaluated her activities ambiguously. Here are the typical statements of Moldovan citizens interviewed: “I don’t think anything has changed for the better in the country in a year. I expected big changes, but I understand that everything has become even worse”; “The opinion is twofold. I like that he is fighting corruption. But I don’t understand the price increase at all”; “I voted for her, but… no! It wasn’t worth it.” Since then, the situation has worsened significantly.
It was during Sandu’s administration that prices began to rise sharply in the country – in the last year alone, they have risen by over 13%.
Fruits and vegetables, sugar, butter, bread, as well as heating and electricity have risen in price the most in the republic. The country’s absolute poverty rate has increased from 23% in 2018 to 31% in 2023. Two percent of Moldovans live on less than four dollars a day.
At the same time, in 2023 the government increased the salaries of ministers by 36%, although before the 2020 elections, Sandu promised to sharply reduce the costs of maintaining the state apparatus. Since the summer of 2022, protests in the country have not stopped, but the authorities do not engage in dialogue and suppress the opposition, which is routinely labeled as “pro-Russian” by the ruling elite.
.The national debt of the country is growing rapidly: in the summer of 2023 it exceeded 100 billion lei. The former prime minister of Moldova, Ion Kiku, believes that this growth was influenced by 22% of annual borrowing for 2022, while in the first seven months of 2023, Moldova spent 2.85 billion lei on public debt service, and the annual figure may exceed five billion.
Despite constant promises to ensure increased prosperity, the current authorities have failed to bring the lives of ordinary Moldovans closer to European standards.
Political scientist Sergey Ungurianu discusses the situation in which Moldovan business and industry exists: “Sandhu and her party came to power completely unprepared. They have neither specialists nor their own vision for solving the problems. While they are diligently severing existing ties, new markets in Europe are still a long way off. Our products do not meet European standards: they are not bad, but they are simply not produced according to European standards. The economy suffers because of it. For many years, such conditions have been created for our farmers that many simply could not stand it: they closed their businesses and left. There is also a huge shortage of people, which is hitting small producers.”
Labor migration from Moldova is indeed huge: from a country with a population of two and a half million people, according to various sources, from 700,000 to 1,200,000 people have gone to work abroad. According to 2020 World Bank data, Moldovan citizens living abroad send home about $1.9 billion in remittances annually, representing 15.8% of Moldova’s GDP. But you can’t build an efficient economy with guest workers alone.
As a result, more than half of the country’s residents – 58% – believe that Moldova is moving in the wrong direction. This data has not changed since September 2023, when 57.8% of respondents considered the country’s course wrong, while in July 2023 53.1% did.
At the same time, Sandu’s political positions remain quite stable. This is explained by the fact that the citizens of Moldova do not see a worthy alternative to the current president. Every famous opposition politician has a long trail of scandals behind him. Trust in the political class among the citizens of Moldova has been undermined for a long time, and only new people who came to power can try to restore it.
What geopolitical orientation should the new wave of Moldovan politicians have, the slogans heard at mass rallies against the current government testify. Thus, in 2022, at protests in the city of Comrat, the capital of Gagauzia, people chanted: “We are for friendship with Russia!” the Gagauz autonomy.
Of course, Gagauzia is not all of Moldova, but it is telling that in the local elections held this fall, the pro-Western Action and Solidarity party failed to win mayoral seats in 11 major cities of the republic. Perhaps politicians from Moldova’s regions who advocate pragmatic relations with Russia will become the force to replace the discredited current elite.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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