Moldovans vote in a presidential election round. But voter fraud threatens their democracy

CHIțINAU, Moldova (AP) — Moldovan historian and politician Octavian Ticu remembers when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, a seismic event that allowed him to become one of the first amateur boxers to fight for his country at the pinnacle of his sport: the Olympics.

“It was a happy moment for me,” recalls the 52-year-old as he wraps his fists at a boxing gym in the capital, Chisinau. “In 1996, I participated in the Olympic Games in Atlanta. … If I had been in the Soviet Union, I would never have achieved this.”

But today, more than three decades after independence, Moldavia is being targeted by Russia in a hybrid war of propaganda and disinformation that is “wreaking havoc,” Ticu, who competed in the lightweight division, told The Associated Press.

Like Ukraine and Georgia, the former Soviet republic aspires to join european union but it is trapped in a constant geopolitical tug of war between Moscow and the West.

“Russian propaganda is a reality of 30 years of independence,” added Ticu, who has written several books on his country’s history.

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This story, supported by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, is part of an ongoing Associated Press series covering threats to democracy in Europe.

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In the national referendum on October 20, Moldovans voted with a slim majority of 50.35% in favor of securing a path to EU membership. But the result was overshadowed by allegations of a Moscow-backed vote-buying scheme.

One the presidential election took place on the same daythe pro-Western incumbent Maia Sandu received 42% of the vote, but failed to win an outright majority. On Sunday, she will face Alexandr Stoianoglo, a Russia-friendly former attorney general, in a runoff seen as a choice between geopolitical opposites — again.

As with the EU referendum, a poll published this week by research company iData points to a close race on Sunday that leans towards a narrow victory for Sandu, a result that could rely on Moldova’s large diaspora.

The presidential role has significant powers in areas such as foreign policy and national security.

Following the two October votes, Moldovan law enforcement officials said a vote-buying scheme was orchestrated by Ilan Shor, an exiled oligarch who now lives in Russia and was sentenced in absentia in 2023 of fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors say $39 million was paid to voters to more than 130,000 beneficiaries through an internationally sanctioned Russian bank between September and October. Shor denies any wrongdoing.

“These people who go to Moscow, the so-called government-in-exile of Ilan Shor, who come with very large sums of money, are left to roam free,” said Ticu, who ran as a long-shot candidate in the presidential race .

It was “obvious”, added Ticu, that the votes “will not be fair or democratic”. Among the 11 candidates in the first round, he was the only one who supported Sandu in the round.

Voters in Moldova’s Kremlin-friendly breakaway region of Transnistria, which declared independence after a brief war in the early 1990s, can vote in Moldova proper. Transnistria was a source of tension during the war in neighboring Ukraine, especially as it hosts a military base with 1,500 Russian troops.

Ticu warned that if the Russian troops in Ukraine reach the port city of Odessacould “join the Transnistrian region, and then the Republic of Moldova will be occupied”.

In Gagauzia, an autonomous part of Moldova, where only 5% voted in favor of the EU, a doctor was detained after allegedly forcing 25 residents of a home for elderly adults to vote for a candidate they did not chosen. Police said they had obtained “conclusive evidence”, including financial transfers from the same sanctioned Russian bank.

Anti-corruption authorities carried out hundreds of raids and seized more than $2.7 million (€2.5 million) in cash as they tried to crack down.

On Thursday, prosecutors raided the headquarters of a political party and said 12 people are suspected of paying voters to elect a candidate in the presidential race. Also, a criminal case was opened in which 40 employees of state agencies were suspected of taking electoral bribes.

Instead of winning the overwhelming support Sandu had hoped for, the results in both races revealed Moldova’s judiciary as unable to adequately protect democratic process. It also allowed some pro-Moscow opposition parties to question the validity of the votes.

Igor Dodon, the leader of the Socialist Party and a former president with close ties to Russia, said this week that “we do not recognize” the referendum result and labeled Sandu “a dictator in a skirt” who “will do whatever it takes”. to stay in power.”