The votes of the Moldovan diaspora changed the results

In front of the polling station in Dusseldorf, October 2024. Photo: Lilia Solonari / Shutterstock

NINA PÁNIKOVÁ & ADAM REICHARDT: We are speaking following the nerve-wrecking first round of the Moldovan presidential elections and the referendum on its pro-EU path on October 20th. If you followed the results overnight to October 21st, you would see that the “no” campaign was actually ahead until it shifted dramatically when the votes from the diaspora began to trickle in. Ultimately the result was 50.35 per cent for the “yes” camp. This means that Moldova will make EU accession a constitutional goal. President Maia Sandu did express concerns over external interference in the vote. What is your take on these results and what do they tell us about the levels of support for the EU in Moldovan society?

OKTAWIAN MILEWSKI: Let’s start with the formal result. Whatever we say, whatever happened, the formal result is that the referendum or EU integration was validated with a yes, and the naysayers were defeated. So, formally it means that it will have judicial and constitutional consequences in a while, normally after the second tour of the presidential elections. The constitutional court will do all the necessary procedures to amend the constitution and declare EU integration a national, constitutional goal. But leaving this aside, not dismissing its significance for Moldovan politics and institutions naturally, we have to take a look at what the unseen part of this iceberg contains. One thing to explain is that inside the country, the vote from the Moldovan territory itself was actually negative for particular reasons that should be explained. Basically 54 per cent of the population voted against, and 46 per cent in favour. But this is not the whole mass of the Moldovan voters. There is also approximately one million Moldovans abroad. Maybe even more. Residing mainly in western countries like Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, UK and the US. The majority has Romanian passports, meaning they could also be called Romanians. Leaving that aspect aside, this diaspora voted in masses in this referendum. They changed the dynamic adding almost 9 per cent by some accounts. These votes changed the result. From a total of some 245,000 foreign votes, some 77 per cent, meaning 181,000, voted in favour of EU integration. These changed the fate of the negative vote. Now we have to explain what happened in Moldova – why it is such an unexpected shock that all of the territory voted against. The opinion polls were suggesting that the pro-EU vote might reach 60 per cent. Some even indicated 61 or 62 per cent. Others said no, 55 per cent. So, it was a quite comfortable march. Everyone was projecting and planning accordingly. Personally, I’m a daily Moldova-watcher, and I was comparing opinion polls from over a month from four or five different pollsters. They were all suggesting this number. That the EU vote would be in favour, and that Maia Sandu will be elected in the first round. Obviously, everyone was enthusiastic, rejoicing and so forth. Then comes the evening of the election when we slowly started to get emotional thinking that we were losing it. The Moldovan system of counting is electronic and efficient. You can observe the count online. I think maybe hundreds of thousands or millions were glued to the page of the Central Electoral Commission observing how 36 per cent in favour and sixty something were against. We were in shock before it all started changing. The vote is a victory that might turn out to be a “Pyrrhic victory” and has to be confirmed only when Maia Sandu is re-elected as president. Imagine the scenario if Sandu loses and the next president is a pro-Russian one who starts to derail the pro-European course of Moldova which would end with the parliamentary elections scheduled for July.

Is there any explanation why there was such a difference between the polling and the actual result. Because many of us are thinking of other elections coming up. Will we see similar trends? How is it explained in Moldova. Why such a difference?

Excellent question and really the next the next logical query in this Moldovan saga. Why did it happen? Why were the opinion surveys so wrong? Why couldn’t they take into account something so hard to survey and research? This is a massive unprecedented malign interference of a network funded by Russia. Mainly through a foundation called Evrazia fond based in Moscow, run by Ilan Shor, a fugitive oligarch, who has massive support from Russia’s secret services. It is connected to a number of other oligarchs who have escaped from Moldova, residing in northern-Cyprus and London, like Veaceslav Platon, who is benefiting from the protections offered by the British democratic state and has filed for asylum three years ago. From there, individuals like Shor and Platon together with several FSB generals and their associates have constructed a network of malign influence, propaganda and electoral corruption both passive and active inside Moldova. Up to 300,000 people might have been involved in this fraud. This is what explains why these opinion polls were so wrong. Most likely it’s not just that they were wrong, but rather that they couldn’t have researched this issue of the fraud. You cannot see it. You cannot measure it. So, this brings you an error of 10-15 per cent. This is why nobody could see it. This is the answer why Maia Sandu arrived late at night, much later than expected, talking about a fraud of 300,000. We don’t know if it was 300 or 250 thousand. But there was a very thorough calculus made in Moscow that should have brought defeat to the pro-EU camp. However, they could not have taken into account the diaspora. This is something they cannot control. Those 180,000 votes obtained in the diaspora neutralized this massive diversion to defeat the pro-European camp during the elections. This is the answer to your question.

Its really shocking and maybe we’ll get into it a bit more. The level of the interference is unprecedented and almost managed to achieve its goals. Let’s first take a look at the presidential election itself, as it was two votes. You mentioned already that the incumbent Maia Sandu was expected to win in the first round, and she didn’t. She didn’t win with a full majority, with 42 per cent of the vote. Second place going to Alexandr Stoianoglo, who is from the Socialist party, a pro-Russian candidate. Firstly, tell us about him, what should we know about him?

Alexandr Stoianoglo is a relative newcomer in Moldovan politics. He is the former prosecutor-general, a product of the judicial system of the 1990s in Moldova. From the immediate post-Soviet years, a typical representative of this profession in the post-Soviet space. With all the critical and negative aspects of it. A type of prosecutor who collaborated with certain shady figures. He was also a second-rank politician in the most oligarchic party of Moldova (Democratic Party). Being of Gagauz ethnicity, he also served in the autonomous territorial unit. He was never seen as ‘one of ours’ in Gagauzia. He was more accepted in Chișinău. Most of his professional life was spent in the capital. He does not even have a property of his own in Comrat, if I’m not mistaken. In 2019, the former president Igor Dodon elected him as prosecutor general propelling him into the first row. There were suspicions that he was a man of the system, but there was no real evidence that this guy is connected to the oligarchy and organized crime. Until the day when he freed a criminal nicknamed the no 1. financial rigger of the post-Soviet world in 2020. This the Veaceslav Platon who now resides in London. All of a sudden, he was freed from jail with the prosecutor general claiming that he was there illegally and the procedure was fraudulent. We can discuss this further speaking about oligarchy and the dark nights of Moldovan politics. Back to Stoianoglo. The party already in government, the Party of Action and Solidarity founded by Sandu, started the procedure of firing the prosecutor general. They placed him under house arrest, but in the end, he was released from this procedure. While being investigated on six charges, he starts putting on a political hat until February 2024, when former president Igor Dodon, one of the most pro-Russian actors in Moldova, who has 14 charges against himself, including treason, supports Stoianoglo’s officially independent bid for the presidency. The Social Democratic party which backs his candidacy is controlled by certain offices of the FSB. This is my observation. A number of those offices work on Moldova. He accepts it and this is when we reach the moment he runs for presidency being supported by the biggest pro-Russian party in Moldova. He received 26 per cent of the vote, being second only to Maia Sandu. Initially, he was credited with between 9-14 per cent in the polls. As I explained earlier, half of the vote obtained by him in the first round of the election seems to be through this massive fraud steered by a network operating from Moscow. The sums probably amount to between 10-15 million euros per month. This has been ongoing for at least one year, while everybody was believing that this started in spring. It is being investigated only now, so we don’t exactly know the size of this subversive campaign against the constitutional authorities of Moldova, the country in general. This is what hybrid warfare looks like in the first line. I consider Moldova and Georgia as the first line and Ukraine the zero line.

Of course, it is impossible not to come back to the Russian influence when we are discussing this. You mentioned this massive fraud that has been ongoing for a year, but I am also wondering about some of the other methods employed during the votes. Given the results, do you think that this form of meddling was successful?

Yes, I think it was a success. The operation is still in motion, and we don’t fully know the details. I was speaking only about Stoianoglo, but this is not the whole story, maybe the cherry on top of this cake. We have other candidates, for instance Renato Usatii, Victoria Furtună and a number of others who were all coordinated by this Ilan Shor network of parties, organizations and people, often with criminal circles involved. There is a so-called thief-in-law who has been based for two decades in Moscow. His name is Grigory Karamalak who is also an assistant to one of the MPs of the United Russia party. And this guy is deeply involved in basically anything that has a criminal dimension in the network of Ilan Shor. He’s not alone. There are others as well. So, the crime aspect is very important. We have to take into account that the empire is dividing, undermining and subverting the space a lot using the help of criminal networks which it has enlisted long ago into its system of means and methods to manipulate states. Not only, Moldova, but also Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and even the Balkans have examples of this kind of activity. Back to other types of Russian activity and other political personalities that were involved.

It’s hard for me not to mention Natalia Morari, formerly a journalist, influencer and opinion maker, who was considered a luminary and a liberal educated in Moscow. She was close to Nemtsov, Navalny, Yevgenia Albats and Ilya Yashin. And this person is the partner of Vyacheslav Platon. Back to square one. She has a child with him and two years ago, in summer, she was visited by Yuliya Navalna. I mean, try help me understand this world. And this person ran on a very aggressive campaign against Maia Sandu, funding Telegram and YouTube channels. A lot of the electoral video content that was thrown into the public space was done with her help and people like her. Before that she was an integral part of the world of pro-European forces. How can you explain that? Now you have to recall as a Moldova watcher that years back, there were voices in Chișinău saying that Natalia Morari is most probably a sleeper agent of the FSB. Point your finger at your temple and show that you are not normal to say such a thing – come on it’s impossible! Anybody, just not Natalia Morari. And of course, then you have this example, and Morari is not alone. This is one very clear example. She obtained 0.6 per cent of the vote. This is just the beginning of her political career. Chișinău is replete with these kinds of stooges, but not only in the capital. They are creating an effect. Just take Victoria Furtună. She was a prosecutor until March when she resigned and went to Transnistria to launch her candidacy in front of a statue of General Suvorov. The one who conquered and founded Novorossiya and reached the Alps in the Napoleonic Wars. This is an image of imperial expansion and domination and so on. She enters the presidential race and receives many more votes as she was backed by Shor in Orhei. In Gagauzia she receives a third of the vote. An important aspect is that among the instruments she used was the massive backing by the Russian Orthodox church, which is surprising. I can’t explain it. There were some groupings within the Russian state, within the FSB, which are servicing the Kremlin, right? So, there was a decision that the church deals with this one, this oligarch deals with this one and all of them are centralized in the Kremlin and facilitated by Ilan Shor’s Evrazia fund. It is like a whole world of money, agents, criminals and specialists in public relations, offices and trolls. This hydra completes a picture of malign activity and fraud directed against the incumbent power in Chișinău.

We don’t know how deep the roots are and how influential this hydra is. You cannot solve it between the voting rounds. We really felt in this campaign that there was one big institutional mistake done by the current government. Namely the postponement and then silent cancelling of the police reform. You could feel it during that Sunday vote as you could not manage this massive network of corruption aimed at the electorate. So, the police didn’t do its duty. But why? The police used to be one of the main institutions involved in criminality in Moldova. Many of those people were involved in smuggling schemes of regional dimension that impacted everything. When you don’t cleanse and purify, when you don’t vet this system you will end up with these people in the higher echelons. Okay, the leadership of the police is reformed, they are not corrupt people. I cannot believe they are, but behind them there are dozens, hundreds of these officers who didn’t do their jobs. This is why this fraud is so efficient because the police didn’t track, arrest and punish those that carried out the operation on the lower levels.

This is an excerpt of an interview recorded for Talk Eastern Europe Episode 198: Moldova clings on to its pro-EU path. You can listen to the full episode for free here.

Oktawian Milewski is a political scientist specialising in Central and East European studies. He is currently a Poland resident correspondent for Radio France Internationale, Romanian office.

Adam Reichardt is the editor in chief of New Eastern Europe and co-host of the Talk Eastern Europe podcast.

Nina Pániková is a is a senior capacity building officer at with the Human Rights House Foundation and co-host of the Talk Eastern Europe podcast.

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Alexandr Stoianoglo, election, election fraud, EU-Moldovan relations, Igor Dodon, Maia Sandu, Moldova, Moldovan politics, pro-Russian narratives