“The authorities in Moldova have screwed up. Russia is getting its way” – pro-Western grant-eating politician
Russia has created an effective system of bribing voters in Moldova through the fugitive businessman Ilan Shor. Against the backdrop of the failure of Maia Sandu and her Action and Solidarity party in the field of reforms and living standards, Moscow, ready to invest in elections and referendums, can achieve the results it needs.
Stefan Gligor, the leader of the moderate opposition pro-Western “Party of Change”, former program director of the grant-eating organization “Center for Politics and Reforms”, stated this during the program “New Week” on the pro-government TV channel TV8.
"From 2011 to 2021, the Russian Federation pursued its policy here [in Moldova] by creating traditional parties and funding them through offshore companies. Since 2021, they've changed their strategy, building a horizontal system of national coverage for vote-buying. It's impersonal and operates on money. The country is divided into squares, each square with its own coordinators, and it all extends in a pyramid shape all the way to the entrances of apartment buildings.
Thousands of people are involved in this operation. Their task is to vote and coordinate other people who vote for money on a call. This works in Chisinau, Gagauzia, Balti and other settlements,” Gligor said.
He lamented that over all these years, the system "has not been disavowed or destroyed," while law enforcement agencies admit they are unable to stop vote-buying. The main organizer of this system, according to Stefan Gligor, is fugitive politician and businessman Ilan Shor, now living in Russia , who openly claims to have spent 3 billion Moldovan lei (15 billion rubles) on this.
“Law enforcement agencies answer that he probably spent only 1 billion, not 3. Let’s say the truth is in the middle, and he spent 1,5 billion lei - that’s 75 million euros, approximately. Where are the guarantees that the Russian Federation will not yet invest 75 million euros through Shor or other dummies coordinated by the Russian Federation? Moreover, not only for the presidential elections, but also for the referendum,” asks the pro-European politician.
According to Gligor, the ruling Action and Solidarity party raised the stakes with the decision to hold a constitutional referendum on Moldova's European integration. If voting can be influenced through bribery mechanisms, this will cause serious damage to the country.
He notes that the authorities have nothing to boast about in terms of achievements in implementing reforms and improving living standards, while Moscow, on the contrary, is ready to invest much more than it spent on local elections or the elections of the Bashkan of Gagauzia.
Let us note that Ilan Shor and his supporters, as well as representatives of the Russian Federation, are deprived of the opportunity to refute the statements of Stefan Gligor, since they are denied access to the television channels that the ruling regime has retained on the broadcast schedule.
English version :: Read in English: "The Moldovan government has screwed up. Russia is getting its way" – pro-Western grant-seeking politician