Moldovans, torn between Romania and Ukraine, went to the polls yesterday for both the presidential elections in which incumbent President Maia Sandu is running again, and the European Union referendum. While the presidency went to a second round with Maia Sandu failing to pass 50 percent and receiving 42 percent of the vote, 50.46 percent of Moldovans narrowly supported EU membership in the EU referendum. Russia was found to have interfered in the elections, paying bribes of about 100 euros to approximately 300,000 people in the elections, where 1.55 million people went to the polls.¹ It was recorded as the largest bribe given by one country to another's voters in world history.
In the rest of our article, I will evaluate Moldova's path to this referendum, its importance, its outcome and its possible consequences.
Moldova's EU Adventure | (2009-2022)
To better understand the situation, we need to take a look at Moldova’s brief history. However, I would like to point out that this summary will be quite brief; those who want to learn more can visit the English Wikipedia.
A New Western Page
Moldova, which has been governed by pro-Western governments since 2009, has not made any major steps towards EU integration until 2020. Between 2009 and 2020, coalitions of oligarchs and mafia leaders governed the country in an unstable manner, failing to make any progress for a decade. In 2014, the Gagauz, the country’s largest ethnic minority, voted to join Russia by more than 90 percent in a referendum held after the EU debate came to the fore. Although this request was rejected by Russia, it shows the Gagauz’s loyalty to Russia.
Maia Sandu's Entry onto the Stage
Maia Sandu began her political career in the Liberal Democratic Party and became Minister of Education. A series of events triggered protests in 2015-16 that sent her career in a different direction. These protests are also important for understanding the current elections, because one of the reasons for the protests was the evaporation of one billion dollars from the Moldovan financial system. The person who stole this money was the businessman Ilan Shor, the chairman of the Moldovan Savings Bank. Shor borrowed heavily from Moldova’s three major banks and channeled these funds into so-called investments in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. However, these “investments” were eventually transferred to the accounts of a few private individuals and disappeared.²
Following the protests, Sandu resigned from her party and founded a new political party, PAS, in 2016. The party quickly gained momentum and in the 2019 elections, it formed an alliance with Platform DA and won 26% of the vote. As a result of these elections, no bloc was able to form a single government majority: the Socialists, Democrats and ACUM (Sandu’s bloc) controlled about a third of the parliament. Although first ACUM-Democrats and then Democrats-Socialists tried to form a government, politics remained deadlocked for a year.
Although a technocratic government was formed and politics cooled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sandu was elected President in the presidential elections at the end of 2020 by receiving 57 percent of the votes in the second round and then declared early elections.
PAS's Victory
In the 2021 parliamentary elections, PAS came to power alone with 52 percent of the vote. Sandu has been closely aligned with her party due to Moldova’s semi-presidential system. PAS, which has control of the presidency and parliament, has initiated many reforms, the most important of which are those related to the European Union. As a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moldova applied for EU candidacy, which was accepted by the EU.
The Importance of These Elections
The importance of the elections begins here. Although the European Union looks favorably on Moldova, due to the anti-EU stances of Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, it wants Moldova to prove that it takes its EU mission seriously. For this reason, the EU has not started negotiations despite recognizing Moldova as a candidate country. The process of countries joining the EU ends with their first being recognized as candidates by all members, then starting negotiations and the approval of the completed negotiations by all member states. Finally, the parliaments and heads of state of the member states must approve the new member's accession to the EU.
Maia Sandu and her party therefore organised a referendum to send a message of determination to the European Union. This referendum did not only include the question of "Should we join the EU or not?", but also included the addition of a new section to the Moldovan Constitution that saw the EU as the ultimate goal. The referendum result in the elections held on 20 October 2024 was so close that the message Moldova wanted to send to the EU may have backfired.
Russian Intervention
Russian Supervision
Moldova, which remained under Russian rule for over 150 years, is still seen by Russia as a sphere of influence. Russia continues to make various attempts to prevent Moldova from joining the EU. Moldova, which remained under a kind of Russian yoke until 1991, is the only country among the other USSR countries that was governed by communists until around 2009. Contrary to initial thoughts, this change of power did not occur due to the opposition winning the elections, but rather due to protests over the suspicious nature of the elections after the communists won again.
Tools Used by Russia
The protests, especially in 2009 and 2015-16, are seen by Russia as a "conspiracy of the West" and likened to the Euromaidan events in Ukraine. Since 2015, Russia has been actively supporting Ilon Shor, whom I mentioned earlier, and protecting him in Moscow. So much so that in the 2019 elections, Shor founded his own party, the Shor Party, and supported pro-Russian policies. When election periods come, you will see truck-loaded sales points with the Shor logos in many villages, and the products sold there are sold at much lower than normal market prices. (I have experienced this myself.)
On the other hand, Russian businessmen owned many media outlets in Moldova before the invasion of Ukraine and used these media outlets for propaganda in favor of Russia and Putin. In the decision taken by the European Parliament on October 3, 2024, Russia's interventions in this election were condemned:
According to MEPs, Moldovan security services recently stated that Russia spent around €100 million to undermine the upcoming election process in order to persuade Moldovans to vote against closer ties with the EU. On October 3, 2024, Moldovan authorities uncovered a large-scale voter fraud scheme funded by Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor, in which $15 million was transferred to 130,000 Moldovans as part of a voter bribery operation. Condemning these tactics, the MEP calls on Russia to respect Moldova’s independence, stop provocations and withdraw its military forces from its territory. It also reiterates its previous calls for the destruction of all ammunition stored in the Cobasna depot in the separatist region of Transnistria.³
The Future of Moldova
Both the Russian and Moldovan governments have achieved their goals to some extent. Maia Sandu and her party have a legal basis for EU integration, but Russia has also questioned the legitimacy of this program with the very small result of the referendum being "Yes". So much so that while 55 percent of Moldovan residents said "No" to the referendum, the result of the referendum was "Yes" with the votes from abroad that were counted until the morning hours.
This situation will strengthen Russia's disinformation efforts in Moldova, because it has both strengthened the narrative that "Only those living in Moldova should vote, those abroad do not understand us" and used the narrative that "The government 'rigged' the ballot boxes abroad throughout the night" to successfully convey a conspiracy theory, especially to those who follow its own media outlets.
Now Moldova faces the second round of the presidential election. Alexandr Stoianoglo, who is running against Maia Sandu, is the candidate of the Moldovan Socialists Party and represents mostly pro-Russian groups. However, two positive points for Moldova's future at the moment are that both candidates called on the public to common sense, tolerance and mutual communication in their statements today, and that both agreed to hold a debate program in an impartial media outlet.
Conclusion
After all this, I would like to end my article by sharing the most important points of the speeches made by the two presidential candidates today.
Maia Sandu:
"The people of the Republic of Moldova have spoken and the majority has approved the European path. (...) We have won the first battle in a difficult struggle that will determine the future of our country. We fought fairly and rightfully won in an unfair struggle. (...) Our enemies want a divided, frightened Moldova; they want Moldovans to doubt their strength and unity. (...) The goal of buying 300,000 votes - and state institutions documenting that 150,000 people were paid to vote - shows that we must carefully examine where mistakes were made and learn from this disgusting attack on our sovereignty." ⁴
Alexander Stoianoglo:
"I believe that the Moldovan way is the way of justice for all! It is competence, the ability to listen and hear all citizens, regardless of their geopolitical preferences and ethnicity. The European way is the way of consolidation of the whole society, uniting on the values of democracy, civil liberties, humanism and ideals of progress. I know that some will enter the second election with the same familiar patterns; hysterically searching for enemies of the people, sowing fear, panic and mutual distrust. Control over intelligence services, secondary media and freedom of expression is on their side." ⁵
Source:
⁴ - www.politico.eu
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