Silence at 100 Days
How Moldova’s New Government Let a Political Milestone Pass Without a Message
Yesterday, Prime Minister Alexandru Munteanu's government passed the symbolic milestone of 100 days. Traditionally, this is a major communications moment for any new government as they have (presumably) gotten settled into office and had time to lay out their priorities. As a political tool, it marks early accomplishments and is used to set a tone and direction for the rest of their tenure in office.
Prime Minister Munteanu has not put out any statements to mark the occasion and Newsmaker quotes him as calling the "first 100 days" milestone as "outdated" and "Soviet."
That last part is particularly confusing, as the tradition of using the first 100 days to frame an agenda and build momentum goes back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the start of the New Deal in 1933. It is very common around Europe and almost invariably marked by Moldovan Prime Ministers and Presidents1. It is particularly not Soviet as the leaders of that defunct empire spent no time considering limited terms of office, justifying their priorities to citizens or organizing a legislative agenda.
Just because the Prime Minister chose not to mark the milestone did not mean that it did not happen2. Various of news outlets ran summaries of the government’s 100 days, the MAN party protested on the occasion, the Communists gave speeches and President Maia Sandu was forced to answer questions in interviews about why the milestone was being ignored.
This was juxtaposed with 2 official press releases from the government on February 9th. In one, Prime Minister Munteanu bid farewell to the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Moldova. In the other, he met with a relatively junior German MP.
I reached out to the new Government Spokesperson, Daniela Crudu, last Friday for comment on their 100 days. She didn’t respond until I pressed - asking if the answer was “no comment” on the evening of February 9th, at which time she asked for more time to answer my questions. At the time of writing I have not heard back.
Problems with Communication
Since coming into office Prime Minister Muntean and his team have struggled to communicate either their objectives or what they are working on. NM quotes economic expert Victor Ciobanu on the issue saying:
"Maybe some interesting ideas are emerging from the depths of the Ministry of Economy, but we don't know about them. The government is like a hedgehog in the fog. They seem to be doing something, but the details are unclear."
Government Spokesperson Daniela Crudu only recently took over the job after the post was vacant for nearly 3 months. In that time the Prime Minister’s team have succeeded in making him very active on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram Reels with short videos - including recent ones about snow removal and one this morning explaining that he and various ministers were off to Kyiv for official visits.
This has created a strange communications mix. On one hand, the new Prime Minister, who has no prior political experience or profile as a public figure, is quite present on social media. On the other, the lack of a spokesperson has meant that nothing approximating a clear messaging agenda has been put out since they took office.
Finally, what is most unusual is that the lack of clarity about what is going on is not just a public phenomenon. All last week I have had discussions with people and organizations that work closely with the government in various areas (civil society groups, NGOs, etc) who uniformly asked me what the government was going to announce at the 100 day mark?
They didn’t know, I had no answer and the apparent answer is “nothing.”
So taking as a fact that this has been a masterclass in how not to do political communications, let’s try and answer the question as best as we can and look at what happened in the last 100 days.
“100 Days of Foreign Policy”
Former Government Spokesperson Daniel Vodă published a post with his thoughts on the top accomplishments of the 100 days. He did so in his new capacity as an associate expert in foreign policy and strategic communications at the think-tank IPRE.
In his analysis he first cites as historic Moldova’s move to finally disentangle itself from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). He goes on to note successful diplomacy in growing bilateral relationships both for Moldova’s economic development and security relationships. The only really concrete point he celebrates in this area was the recent $35 million dollars in support allocated by the United States for security assistance.
Vodă’s focus on international affairs is logical given his new position, but it further highlights the lack of clear talking points for the new government. The effort to withdraw from CIS has been ongoing since 2022 and is not complete. He specified that he made the post because Newsmaker had approached him for analysis. The unspoken implication was clear - after failing to get comment from the current government team, they reached out to the former spokesman.
The foreign policy framing may also be an attempt to just fill the blank with something. Experts who spoke to various news outlets pretty uniformly noted the lack of policy clarify on economic and domestic affairs. Speaking to Newsmaker, Victor Ciobanu called Minister of Economy Eugen Osmochescu's announcement of a Development Bank “important.” But we still have no details on what that is envisioned to be. The most visible actions in the last 100 days are around taxes - namely the revision / removal of the de minimis tax rate (targeting Temu) and the re-valuation of land values for property taxes. These could be important reforms, but in the case of the land valuation I have so far totally avoided it on Moldova Matters because it’s so unclear how it will turn out.
Economic expert Veaceslav Ioniță explained the tax moves more broadly saying:
“The government is facing a difficult situation: revenues are falling, while expenses are rising. The deficit is growing, and to correct the situation, revenues must be increased. This is precisely what the government is doing: finding ways to increase budget revenues. This is a noble goal, but it is being completely misrepresented. The government has very poor communication.”
The impression is one of many policies under discussion, but very little clarity as to what is going on and what the overall direction is.
What Does This All Mean?
Maybe nothing. The tradition of marking 100 days is totally artificial (if not Soviet in any way). It’s really not clear if there are big ideas and projects afoot that are not being communicated well… or not. Failing to talk about it on an arbitrary day isn’t necessarily an indicator one way or another.
It is however an indicator of a failing, or non-existent, political strategy. A simple press release (or facebook post) would have avoided a bad news cycle. Bigger than that though, is a real and widespread feeling that people do not know what this government is doing.
When pressed by a reporter on the 100 days, President Sandu responded:
“In 100 days, you cannot make a revolution in the economy. We are waiting to see a program, not necessarily a completely new one, because there is continuity, but with new elements that take into account the current context, in order to accelerate economic growth despite external and internal obstacles,”
So we are all still waiting.
Former PM Dorin Recean was a recent exception. The 100 days is most often used following an election (like now) and not when the government changes internal to a party.
Much like how forgetting a loved one’s birthday does not somehow mean they didn’t have one.