Moldova’s knife-edge election and E.U. referendum
36:42 Share

On October 20, Moldovans cast their ballots in both a presidential election and a constitutional referendum. And the results came as a shock to many. In the referendum, which asked whether the country should change its constitution to include joining the European Union, the yes vote won by just over 50%. Meanwhile, in the presidential vote, pro-EU incumbent Maya Sandu came in first but failed to win an outright majority.

The day after the vote, Sandu accused criminal groups of attempting to undermine the democratic process by working with foreign forces to try and buy as many as 300,000 votes. Now, she'll face pro-Russian candidate Alexander Stoyanov in a high-stakes runoff scheduled for November 3rd. What does all of this say about Moldova's political landscape in 2024? I'm glad you asked. Welcome to the Naked Pravda.

Hello, and welcome back to The Naked Pravda. I'm Eilish Hart, the editor of The Beat, Meduza's long-reads newsletter covering Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. It's been a while since I hosted a show, but I'm happy to be back this week to cover the recent referendum and presidential election in Moldova. Moldovan elections are typically seen as a standoff between pro-EU and pro-Russian political forces, but geopolitics are

often only part of the story. So to get a better sense of the domestic issues at play, I turn to Moldovan journalist and writer Paula Erizanu. Geopolitics has been very linked to internal kind of political issues. Of course, what Moldovans have been concerned about has been inflation. We've had around 40% inflation since 2022 altogether, if you add it.

And salaries and pensions, although they have been increased, they haven't caught up with the inflation rate. So people have been really affected by the rising prices, which of course is a global phenomenon as well due to the pandemic and

and also the war in Ukraine, and for us being the immediate neighbor of Ukraine and having relied on the Odessa trade and also on trade with Ukraine and Russia before, in addition to the kind of the bulk of the trade which is with the EU in Moldova, that has really affected the country. But Russian narratives and some opposition parties have...

have tried to put the blame on the government for this rising prices. And beyond inflation, before the war in Ukraine broke, one of the top issues that Moldovans were worried about was big-scale corruption. Moldova was a captured state by an oligarchic regime between 2016 and 2019.

And the reform of the judiciary was one of the kind of top priorities for Sandu when she was campaigning in 2020. When she came to power, though, we had no vaccines, you know, so her team had to focus on getting vaccines in the pandemic. And also the war broke in Sebori and we were also going through an energy crisis with the kind of dependence on Russian gas that Moldova had.

dropped only in the past couple of years. And the government has embraced a kind of reform of the judiciary, which meant an extraordinary kind of vetting system, which meant that a commission formed of local and international experts would evaluate the financial integrity of all judges and prosecutors. But that is a very slow process.

And it's not, it hasn't been exactly uncontroversial. And also the fact that the government knew about this vote buying fraud for a while and that they had tried to address it, but at the same time haven't addressed it in time in order to secure a safe election process also reflects how

the judiciary reform ultimately failed. And this is something that Sandu has kind of taken responsibility for in the sense that

that she says, oh, if she wins again, she's going to drop her white gloves and consult the population in order to go with a more radical approach to reform the judiciary. It's not exactly clear what she means by this, and also it's not exactly clear how the Sunday vote on the 3rd of November is going to go and if the fraud continues.

is going to basically prevent Moldova from continuing its reform of the judiciary. On the other side, the presidential candidate, Aleksandar Stajanoglou, who was a general prosecutor, he also blames the government for the failed reform of the judiciary, but at the same time, he hasn't really condemned the vote-buying practices

And something that he is accused of is that these votes were bought for him, even if perhaps he didn't know about it. And also some of the vocal kind of supporters that Stoyanoglu has

are the former oligarchs like Vlad Filat, like Vyacheslav Platon, who is now in London, and then Igor Rodon, who was the former president of Moldova.

and who is close to the Kremlin, as well as Ilan Shor, who is now in Moscow. So while Stoyanov has been kind of broadly talking about reforming the judiciary, the kind of questions that arise are

How is he going to fight against these oligarchs who openly support him? What was the logic behind holding a simultaneous referendum on changing the Constitution to include Session? Like, how did Maya Sandu and her government communicate this to the public? Was it an attempt to sort of separate the presidential vote from geopolitical issues, or did they frame it as something else? So when Sandu announced the referendum,

She said the plebiscite was needed in order to show that it wasn't just her government who wanted to join the EU as Russian narratives were portraying it, but instead that the EU integration process reflected

the will of the majority of Moldovans. And it's within the same logic that she, for instance, organized a pro-EU demonstration where tens of thousands of people came to show their support for the EU. And that was at a time when

kept organizing these protests where he paid people to go and demonstrate on the streets. And those were making international headlines and seemed to portray that Moldovan society was kind of against EU integration. So that was the kind of logic which Sandoz presented, her initiative to hold the referendum. And because presidential elections normally attract to the

biggest number of voters. She suggested having it on the same day as the presidential vote. But then critics would say that she came up with this initiative to hold the referendum in order to hide her failures in reforming the judiciary, for instance.

And then it's ironic that it's precisely this failure to reform the judiciary that has compromised, to some extent, the EU referendum. What other critics would say is that Sandor has been trying to kind of monopolize, you know, the EU integration process and capitalize politically on it. And it's interesting to actually see that a lot of the forces that

are linked to pro-Russian parties, including presidential candidate Aleksandr Stoyanov. They claim that they are pro-European. And that shows that, yes, actually, Moldovan society has become pro-European. And perhaps the referendum outcome indeed does not reflect

the real geopolitical landscape in the country, and Moldovans do support EU integration, and that's why even Russia's candidates have to say that they support EU integration. Of course, one has to distinguish between deed and word, and this is where the kind of questions arise with

How far does Stojan Oglo, for instance, support EU integration? He boycotted the referendum himself, blaming Sander that this was just a kind of electoral exercise. And he also seems to support a slower EU integration process, as if, you know, Moldova has all the time in the world and the EU would stay open to Moldova's accession as well.

So on election day, I think there was mostly a kind of celebratory mode. People were posting pictures of this badge, this kind of sticker that they got from polling stations which said, "I voted." So everyone was bragging about having voted. People were quite hopeful in my social bubble. And until then, the opinion polls were all showing that

the EU referendum is going to pass by quite a big margin, so at least 55% or something like that within the country, and even more with the diaspora vote. So there wasn't any kind of fear surrounding this.

the threshold for the referendum that was real in society. At the same time, weeks before, we had the police and other law enforcement bodies announce that they had discovered basically that 140,000 people or 130,000 people at that point had been involved in vote bribing. So there was real concern about fraud and it

it had been known for weeks. The figure was very shocking. When I first heard about it, I was like, oh my God, we have a population of just under 3 million and 140,000 people is a huge number for a small country. So that did worry a lot of people. But at the same time, it was just law enforcement that was dealing with this. You know, it's not like

something that every single person has felt in society. And then just like with other elections, I guess with the Trump election, you know, in the US or with Brexit in the UK,

You can really see how polarized society has become thanks to social media and how people create their own kind of bubbles and echo chambers. And so perhaps are less aware of people with other political preferences. But then on the other hand, there are families who have voted differently, just like with Brexit or with Trump, I guess, and in those families perhaps differently.

the kind of polarization was more real. Like you've pointed out, the referendum results were very close with like just over 50% of voters voting yes and just over 49% voting no to amending the constitution. And Sandu denounced this narrow margin as a result of interference by criminal groups and foreign forces. What new information has come out about this interference since the vote?

So since the vote, law enforcement has come with updates every single day with like hundreds of new cases and millions of dollars that they have sized. And

And so it feels like law enforcement is really working on this. But at the same time, the general prosecutor, Ion Montano, for instance, said overwhelming state institutions with files, with all of this work is part of the hybrid war tactic. And it's not clear to what extent this process can ensure safe elections on Sunday.

Another development that happened was that following the election, there was this leak to the press where a self-declared police officer expressed how he felt saddened by the fact that society was accusing police and other institutions for their lack of work. And he said, oh, you know, we're working day and night.

to address this fraud, but he blamed the prosecutors and judges for slowing down the work and also for being corrupt and ruling in favor of Shor's network. And in his leak, he basically offered a list of about 3,000 contacts of Shor activists

which has been published by the press, removing their ID and phone numbers, but offering the names and villages and towns where Shor's activists are from as a kind of list of shame that was

verified and in many cases confirmed. There are some smaller kind of numbers of cases where people are saying that they are innocent and they haven't been involved in this vote buying scheme. We've seen arrests and people kind of realizing the wrongdoing because I think to a large extent Shores Network is

tried to target people with lower levels of education, with low levels of income, and who haven't realized that what they are being offered is illegal. They just thought of it as like free money.

And now more people are kind of scared and realize that it's illegal to be bribed into voting a way or another. And they are kind of withdrawing from the scheme. They're collaborating with the police. They are even deciding not to go to vote in the second round of elections. And

From what I hear from some sources is that the plan B for the shore network is basically to organize buses coming from the breakaway region of Transnistria in the east of the country that is controlled by the Sea.

by Russia, although less and less since the war in Ukraine. We've had that happen in the past. I think in 2016 or in 2020, we had a kind of number of 30,000 people coming from Transnistria to vote in elections in an organized manner, which is illegal.

Also, something that happened in this referendum is that actually the numbers of people from Transnistria who voted in the rest of Moldova, because they aren't able to vote in Transnistria, people from there have to travel to the rest of Moldova in order to cast their ballot. And what the referendum showed was that around 40% of people from Transnistria were in favor of joining the EU.

And some sources say that actually the kind of pro-Russian forces from Transnistria were really angry with this result.

Of course, that's not necessarily representative for the whole of the breakaway region. It's more representative of the people who decided to come out and vote. And I think those people are like the believers. It's like the staunch kind of pro-Europeans or pro-Russians who came out to cast their ballot.

For more insight into what the voting results say about Moldova's political landscape and Russia's attempts to influence the country's domestic and foreign policy, I spoke to Ekaterina Lokoman, a senior lecturer of international studies at the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. The results show that the political landscape is very divided in a sense. So it's been like that since Moldova got its independence.

For the last 30-something years, we've had this polarized society in which foreign policy orientation is usually the main thing that determines how elections are decided. So unfortunately, to the detriment of a lot of domestic politics, domestic reforms, oftentimes the question of foreign policy orientation trumps all the other questions that are important to voters. But because of the geopolitical location of Moldova, again, foreign

foreign policy orientation matters. The numbers show one thing, right, that it is divided, that the referendum was won by the yes camp with just a little bit, like I think 10,000 something votes, right? So it's very, very little. However, at the same time, there were a lot of reports which showed that unfortunately a lot of the voters were corrupted into selling their votes. So I think

The election results basically say that it's a political instability, unfortunately. Still, after so many years of building its democracy, it's a fragile democracy still. We are still very much prone to external influence, to propaganda and disinformation. And some people voted...

a certain way because they were paid to vote in a certain way but unfortunately many other people voted because they truly are afraid in both camps actually what i see is that a lot of the politicians especially i would say in the pro-russia camp they were very much narratives based on fears about what is going to happen if maya sandu continues to be the president and if

The referendum wins. And the narratives were based on this idea about fear of the West. The West would not allow you to be as religious. It would not allow for the Orthodoxy to flourish in Moldova.

Another narrative was that they are coming for your children's souls and there will be LGBTQ quotas if we join the EU, right? Which are lies, right? This is disinformation. These are outright lies to kind of scare people.

Moldovans are usually socially conservative, right? So they are very prone to these kinds of messages about religion and about sexual orientation. So a lot of the pro-Russia candidates were playing on these fears. Another one that I remember was very prominent was this idea that the war will come, that Moldova will basically be transformed into another Ukraine, that whatever is happening in Ukraine will

happened to Moldova as well. So a lot of people are out of faith because they can hear and they see what's going on in neighboring Ukraine. So many of them truly think that if we continue on the Western path, then it is more likely that Russia might attack.

Moldova as well. On the other camp, in the pro-EU camp, there were more narratives also based on fear, right? So like I hear from some of my relatives, even like some of the friends that I have back home will say, oh, if a pro-Russia president comes to power, then Moldova will be completely isolated. We won't be able to travel abroad. We won't be able to talk on the phone with people from abroad, right? So again, it's

amplifying the spheres and this memory from the Soviet past when if you were living in the Soviet Union, you needed a visa to go out of the country. So some of the people who have more liberal views, who are more pro-Western, they are afraid that indeed this will happen. But some of these things are true.

on the pro-Western camp. I tend to think and to believe that if a pro-Russia candidate then comes and wins the elections, then any effort to reform Moldova and to fight corruption will stop completely. And Moldova will basically stop being a sovereign state in a sense. What are some of the other ways Russia's war against Ukraine has influenced Moldova's political landscape?

And these elections. When the full-scale invasion in Ukraine happened in 2022, I was hearing reports from back home that some Moldovans were leaving with their suitcases done and ready to flee.

So it definitely increased the level of anxiety among Moldovans about the level of security that they have in the country. Would the country be able to actually sustain? And most of Moldovans, I think, are aware that

With the level of security that we have, there's no way Moldova can stand a Russian-led scenario, the same that happened in Ukraine. Economically, of course, the prices went high because there still is a lot of economic connection between Moldova and Ukraine. A lot of products that are being sold in Moldova are being imported from Ukraine. So the...

Supply chains were disrupted, the inflation increased, of course. So like mundane things, right? The price of renting apartments increased a lot in Moldova. In Chisinau, it was much cheaper to rent an apartment before the war now because a lot of people from Ukraine moved to Moldova.

To Kishin now, it's much more expensive to rent an apartment. At a more macroeconomic level, in terms of energy prices, of course, this has affected because then since independence, you know, Russia has used its leverage in energy.

with Moldova. So every time Moldova would take a policy, would decide on a policy that Russia would not be happy about, then Russia would use the leverage of energy to kind of punish Moldova in any way. So paradoxically, what we noticed was that because of the war, though, this kind of motivated the Moldovan elites, the Moldovan politicians to search for new ways to hedge Moldova against this energy leverage from, or blackmail, I would say, from Russia.

How would you explain the Kremlin's strategy in relation to Moldova? What do officials in Moscow hope this interference will achieve? One of the main goals that the officials in the Kremlin have is to make sure that Moldova is kept out of the Western orbit and kept into Russia's sphere of influence, right? Ever since Moldova got its independence,

The strategies that Russia has used in Moldova were to support some of these domestic politicians in Moldova who promised to be the best promoters of the policies that would be in Russia's interest, which would again be against NATO, against the EU. But when we speak also about some of the other strategies that the Kremlin is using

to kind of influence domestic politics. And then by extension, foreign policy to Moldova has two regions which are problematic, I would say, right? So Transnistria is a breakaway region. The URA is part of Moldova, but de facto...

It doesn't control the region. Another region which is also problematic where Moldova has both the UD and de facto governance is Gagauzia, which is in the southern part of Moldova. About 200,000 people live there. And one of the strategies that the Kremlin, again, is using is they find these places, these pockets in some of these post-communist countries where people are

either ethnically Russian or they are ethnically minority, right? So the Gagauz people, they are Turkic people, but they are Christians. And historically, one could go back and look at how during the Tsarist period, they moved from somewhere in Russia in the southern of Moldova and they were given land there. And so, of course, historically, they were protected by Russia and they have these allegations to Russia.

So the last numbers I saw the Moldovan authorities citing in terms of the scale of the vote buying was, I think, 300,000 people, which is a very big number, especially in the context of Moldova's population. But it doesn't account for everyone who voted no in this referendum. And so I wanted to ask, do you think it's an oversimplification to

interpret that as purely being driven by like anti-EU sentiment or pro-Russian sentiment? Or were there other reasons why people would have voted no? Were there people who opposed changing the constitution, for example? Or is there a

sentiment that's neither pro-EU nor pro-Russian and more in favor of some kind of neutrality for Moldova. I feel like there's probably some more nuances here in terms of public opinion. Yes. So 300,000 is the target of vote votes that Sandu quoted on election day. And that would represent 20% of people who cast their votes in the first round of elections and in the referendum.

It's not clear whether Shores Network reached its target of 300,000 or not, but that was what they were aiming for.

The referendum was to some extent poorly communicated in the sense that while in the public space it was phrased as a kind of pro or anti-EU referendum, on the actual ballot you had a clunky sentence saying, do you agree with the changing of the constitution?

with the vision of integrating Moldova in the EU or something like that, like having EU integration of Moldova in sight. I think some people got scared of what does this change to the constitution look

mean. And for instance, when I went to the polling station, when I came out, I saw an older woman asking a younger woman, what is the referendum question? And like, what does she want to change the constitution the way she pleases? Referring to President Sandu and seeing the referendum as a kind of whim, as kind of Sandu's whim. And even in the polls, in the opinion polls, you had

Some slight difference between people who are in favor of Moldova joining the EU and people who wouldn't want to vote in the referendum.

And even pro-European opposition parties, a lot of them kind of portrayed the referendum as a kind of electoral exercise for Sandoz. So that definitely influenced the vote as well. One of the paradoxes that I have in terms of public opinion in Moldova is to

Some of the people who work and live in the European Union countries, they even have their families there. Some of them, they send money back home, right? They have businesses back home with the money that they earn in Western Europe, in EU member countries. But then they are, again, more conservative and they do not think that Moldova should join the EU countries.

And I think that for some of them, I would call them the pragmatists, right? So like you say, what are the nuances? Again, some of them are afraid that joining the European Union would mean losing sovereignty for Moldova. And they kind of like this middle where they have the Romanian passport. So it's

If you are a Moldovan and you can prove that your grandparents lived in the interwar period in current-day Moldova, when Soviet Union annexed Basarabia or current-day Moldova to the Soviet Union, you can regain your Romanian citizenship, right? So even Alexander Stoyanov, who is the current candidate who promotes a pro-Russian pro-Russian policy, he holds a Romanian passport.

And there are many more people like this who are very pragmatic. They see the benefit in holding a Romanian passport, a EU passport to go and work abroad and be able to earn money, live in a free country, feel free to go to whatever church they want to go to, right, and feel the security. But at the same time, they don't want Moldova to be part of the EU, which I think is, again, paradoxical. I do not have exact numbers about the number of this pragmatism. But to

To be frank, I do not think this is a significant number of people. I still think that it was based a lot on fear. So people, even if they voted no, they don't really understand how much they vote against their own interests.

Because in the end, with a EU membership, this is the best that Moldova can get. And the last four years that I'm going to Moldova regularly, and I've seen how much change there is in the society, in the infrastructure, in the economy. And yes, it's only been four years since Maia Sandu was in power. But I remember how instability and how corrupt the country was and how much it's changed to the good. And

I only can suspect, and again, I'm not like very, I'm very biased in my analysis right now, but I'm speaking as an observer who goes regularly to Moldova, still has family back home, right? And I can see how much change this presidency of Maya Sandu and the efforts that she has made in reforming Moldova and really enshrining EU membership in its constitution.

how much good this could do to Moldova going forward. So I think that, of course, the government could have done much better in terms of some of the reforms that they said they would provide and they didn't. Granted, the country had to be governed when the neighboring country was undergoing a full-scale invasion, right? So there were a lot of crisis situations that Maya Sand and her government had to deal with.

which I think another government would have failed. But despite all of these challenges, I think still that they achieved a lot of things. And yes, it's true that many people are still unhappy with the level of corruption, the level of reforms. And there are talks about other movement, political movements may be taking place in Moldova for the parliamentary elections that are coming up in 2025. But I think still that

The government should be given credit for the efforts. It was not easy for Maya Sandu and for her government to keep Moldova afloat while the neighboring country was being invaded, how so many refugees still maintain some sense of security for all of the salaries to be paid on time. Moldova is still a very fragile democracy, but it is a democracy and you can still feel that.

Moldova is a parliamentary republic, so the role of the parliament is more important than the role of the president. But what would it mean for Moldova if Maia Sandu loses? It would basically be a very big warning sign for the 2025 parliamentary elections because you are right, it's a parliamentary republic.

So we whoever is in the parliament forms the government and rules the country and the president has a more diplomatic role. But, you know, she's been so much the face of pro-EU, of reform, of new in Moldova. I'm not exaggerating when I'm saying that she's the best president Moldova had ever

And to be frank, you know, I'm worried for like the next generation of politicians. Who can there be as charismatic and as full of integrity, I would say, right, as Maya Sandu is. So I think it would be a very big blow to Moldova's dream of becoming finally anchored into the democratic world.

As we've seen in Georgia recently, right, I think it's very risky. And so there are very big efforts in Moldova right now to quality the vote around the pro-EU, around Maya Sandu. The other candidate, I would say this also, one other candidate was very strong.

His name is Renato Usante. I think he got about 12% of the vote. And I was listening yesterday to his post-election speech, right? So everybody was saying that Maya Sandu needs his electorate, his votes, if it is for her to win in the second round. And in his post-election, he basically told his supporters, vote for whoever you want to vote. He didn't endorse Maya Sandu. He didn't endorse Stoianoglu.

So I think it's a very close election. It's very tense. And I would not be as much worried about people's decision making as much as about the capacity of these criminal groups to pay and bribe voters. I think if we take this out of the equation, then I have much more confidence in people's capacity to choose votes.

what orientation is best for the country. But because of these allegations of bribing voters and buying votes, I am more concerned and I'm more uncertain about the election results.

So if Maya Sandu wins, then there is hope that the pro-EU camp, the pro-Western camp has big chances to win. I'm still worried, again, as I said, about the elections in 2025, the parliamentary elections, but I think it would be so much more better that basically the pro-EU orientation will continue, the negotiations with the EU will continue.

So the goal of Moldova actually joining the European Union by 2030 is much more credible if Maya Sandu continues to be the president. And Moldova can rest assured that it will continue to be on the Western government's agendas, on the EU, Brussels, EU capitals, the United States. This is really, really important because unfortunately,

What my research showed that what was hard and difficult for Moldova, most of its independence period was to really be on the radar of the Western governments. And the biggest

success that Maya Sandu did during her presidency on the international stage was to really bring Moldova into the forefront of Western politicians' attention. And so another mandate for her would mean that Moldova would continue to stay in that and even become more prominent in the region.

Thanks for tuning in, folks. This has been The Naked Pravda, a podcast from Meduza in English. Remember that undesirable status back in Russia means our entire news outlet now relies on readers and listeners around the world to support our work. Please visit our website for information about how to become a contributor with one-time or recurring pledges. Thanks again. Until next week. ♪♪♪