PAS and Chisinau City Hall. We change the candidate, but the problem remains?

After advancing a candidate who was not even well-known enough among Chisinau residents, PAS is now coming up with another proposal. It remains to be seen whether, this time, the party has made up its mind or if we are witnessing another round of political groping. In any case, the impression left so far is that PAS is looking for a candidate, but it still does not know exactly what kind of candidate it needs to truly enter the competition for Chisinau Mayor.

The first reactions in the public space, including from some supporters of the European path of the Republic of Moldova, were not exactly enthusiastic. And this is a signal that the party should not ignore. When even its own electorate does not seem convinced of a nomination, perhaps the problem is not only in the way the candidacy is communicated, but also in the choice itself.

One of the frequent criticisms concerns the candidate's communication skills. Of course, It is one thing to speak in Parliament, give speeches and participate in political debates, and it is quite another to convince an entire city that you understand its problems and that you have an administrative vision. Chisinau City Hall is not a parliamentary tribune. Here you cannot build an electoral campaign only through speeches about how much Ion Ceban represents the hand of Moscow or through the eternal plea addressed to the electorate: vote for us, so that the other one does not win.

The useful vote is not an electoral strategy in itself. It can mobilize a part of the electorate, but it cannot replace a credible candidate, with personality, vision and communication skills. Chisinau residents do not just need to be explained why they should not vote for Ceban. They need to be explained why they should vote for the PAS candidate. And between these two messages there is a difference that the party does not seem to have fully understood.

There is also the issue of public image. Victoria Belous comes with a political baggage accumulated at the Ministry of Finance, and the association with tax and duty increases, including the controversy related to Temu products, does not exactly represent an electoral advantage. Perhaps not all of these decisions belong exclusively to him, but in politics, public perception sometimes matters more than technical explanations. And so far, public communication has failed to transform ministerial experience into obvious image capital.

Let's be honest: the competition for Chisinau Mayor is not won by simply nominating a representative of the ruling party. Ion Ceban already has notoriety, electoral experience and administrative visibility built over years. PAS must come with more than a candidacy validated within the party and the hope that the pro-European electorate will do the rest of the work.

Moreover, the party seems to forget that the Chisinau City Hall is not a position that is won through PAS's popularity at the national level. It is a local competition, where traffic, public transport, infrastructure, urban planning, green spaces, cleanliness and, above all, the candidate's ability to talk about these issues in a language that people can understand matter.

However, there is a problem that goes beyond PAS and that we cannot reduce to the name of a candidate. It is about the inability, at least up to this point, of the formations that claim European and Romanian values ​​to build a political alternative around a common project for Chisinau.

Where are the discussions about a possible merger? Where are the meetings, negotiations and attempts to identify a candidate who would overcome the electoral boundaries of a single party? Where is there even a public debate about the administrative priorities of the Capital and what these formations could offer, together?

It is not mandatory for all of them to merge, give up their political identity, or disappear into a temporary alliance. But it is hard to understand why, faced with such an important competition for the future of the Capital, each one seems more concerned with their own visibility than with building a credible alternative.

And before PAS makes plans to "conquer" Chisinau, it would be good to remember the year 2023. Then, Lilian Carp obtained 28,23% of the votes, while Ion Ceban won in the first round, with 50,62%. In the Municipal Council, PAS accumulated 32,88%.

Three years later, it seems that the party still has not found the answer to an elementary question: why is it failing to transform political support into a convincing electoral offer for the people of Chisinau? You can change the candidate, you can change the posters, you can organize press conferences, and you can repeat endlessly that your opponent has connections to Moscow. But you can't ask a city to vote for you just because it doesn't want the other one anymore.

And if this is the lesson that PAS understood from the 2023 elections, then the party's problem is not the lack of a candidate. It is the lack of a strategy that starts from the realities of Chisinau, not from the calculations at party headquarters.