While officially espousing a Leninist communist doctrine, there is debate over their policies. The Economist considers it a centre-right party, communist only in name,[7][8] whereas Romanian political scientist Vladimir Tismăneanu argues that the party is communist in the classical sense, as it has not changed much since the fall of the Soviet Union.[9] Ion Marandici, a Moldovan political scientist considers that the success story of the Moldovan Communists is mainly due to the Communists' capacity to attract the votes of the ethnic minorities and the Romanian-speakers identifying as Moldovans, by proposing a Moldovenist nation and state-project. The decline of the Communists followed after Marian Lupu, a key figure in Moldovan politics, left the Communists Party and joined the Democratic Party, thus bringing with him the Moldovan supporters of the Communists.[10] The party is strongly opposed to any unification of Romania and Moldova.