Late, in the evening of October 20, shortly after the end of the polls for the presidential elections and the EU referendum in the Republic of Moldova, a president Maia Sandu briefly addressed the reporters.

There had been, she said, an “unprecedented attack on freedom and democracy in our country”.

The pro-Western president of the Republic of Moldova went on to say that election and referendum fraud was on an “unprecedented scale” and that attempts were made to buy up to 300,000 votes.

Sandu spoke for only 90 seconds and left without answering any questions.

The opinion polls got it wrong

At this point, it became obvious that Sandu would be the clear winner in the first round of the presidential election.

It was also clear that her predominantly pro-Russian opponents received considerably more votes than opinion polls had indicated.

As for the EU referendum results, at the time of the president’s brief press conference it appeared as if opinion polls were way off target: early results suggested a clear majority of Moldovan voters rejected the government’s plans to consecrate ambition. to join the EU in the constitution.

The next morning, however, things looked completely different: thanks to the votes of the Moldovan diaspora, the pro-EU camp had managed to turn things around, winning with a razor-thin majority. However, the final result was very different from the poll’s predictions.

Is Moldova deeply divided or were votes bought on a massive scale?

Over the past nine days, election observers have wondered whether the pro-EU/pro-Russia divide in Moldova is much deeper than anticipated, or whether the election results were indeed, as Sandu claimed, the result of electoral fraud without previous.

The Police of the Republic of Moldova presented the results of its investigations to the public at the end of last week.

Senior police officials have publicly stated that rigging played a major role in the outcome of the two polls and that the fraud was unprecedented not only in terms of its scale but also in terms of the methods used, which had not been seen before so far in Europe. .

Russian banking application used for payments

According to the country’s police chief, Viorel Cernăuteanu, a criminal group with ties to Israeli-born Moldovan businessman Ilan Shor, who now lives in Russia, has since April of this year involved around 138,000 Moldovan citizens in a network that sought to buy electoral votes.

Accounts were opened for these 138,000 people at the Russian Promsvyazbank (PSB). PSB, which was once a private bank but has been state-owned since 2018, is considered the bank of the Russian arms industry and was subject to Western sanctions even before Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine.

Moldovan citizens were able to use a PSB app to access money paid into their PSB accounts in exchange for their and their relatives’ votes.

Police say the individuals received the equivalent of around 100 euros ($108) for a vote in favor of a pro-Russian candidate in the presidential election or a vote against Moldova’s ambition to join the EU in the EU referendum.

Cash payments are also used

The money was also paid to hundreds of so-called “local coordinators”, who were tasked with checking that people in their group actually cast their votes as promised.

Concerned voters could provide proof of their vote by taking a photo of their ballot in the polling booth.

Moldovan police recorded approximately 1.4 million transactions using the PSB application by people living in the Republic of Moldova since April. Most of the money — about $39 million in total — was transferred to PSB accounts belonging to Moldovan citizens in the weeks leading up to the election and referendum.

Ten percent of Moldovan voters involved

In addition to the 138,000 people known to have used the app, it is estimated that two to four other people per user – most of whom were family members of the user – were involved.

The number of users of the application represents more than 10% of the voters who voted inside the Republic of Moldova, that is, they are not members of the Moldovan diaspora.

The police point the finger at Ilan Shor

Speaking in a press conference last Thursday, the head of the Cernauțeanu Police stated unequivocally that “the electoral corruption campaign was organized by members of Ilan Shor’s criminal organization.”

Shor, who fled to Israel in 2019, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his leading role in what became known in Moldova as the “theft of the century”, where around one billion euros were stolen from the Republic’s banking system Moldova through a complex credit structure between 2012 and 2014.

Shor moved from Israel to Russia in early 2024. He was sanctioned by both the US and the EU, and an Interpol warrant was issued for his arrest. Russia refuses to extradite him.

Shor still politically active abroad

Despite fleeing Moldova, Shor is still politically active in the small, former Soviet republic. His first party, the Sor (Shor) Party, was banned in 2023, as were other parties later founded by the fugitive businessman.

For years, Shor has financed anti-European campaigns and paid people to participate in pro-Russian protests in Moldova.

He was also jointly responsible for a series of huge disinformation campaigns in the run-up to the recent polls. One of the narratives peddled in these campaigns was that EU integration would mean that Moldova would be dragged by NATO into a war against Russia.

When did the authorities discover the fraud scheme?

According to the Police of the Republic of Moldova, important technical details about electoral fraud were discovered by investigators only a few days before the country went to the polls. There are doubts, however, as to whether this was indeed the case.

After all, President Sandu herself said the day after the election that the judiciary had not done enough to prevent fraud. Indirectly, she said that widespread corruption was responsible for the fact that such election interference was even possible in the first place.

Prosecutor General Ion Munteanu went a step further, accusing the Russian secret services of developing the vote-buying mechanism using the PSB app.

He went on to say that Moldovan experts and specialists who previously worked as “policemen, judges, prosecutors and lawyers” helped establish the mechanism across the country.

The second round of voting on November 3

The country will go to the polls again this Sunday for the presidential election round.

Maia Sandu remains the favorite to win — as she was in the first round. However, her opponent in the second round, Alexandr Stoianoglo, could get the votes of other candidates who did not poll as well as him. It could prove to be a very close race.

Stoianoglo, who came in well behind Sandu in the first round, is a former attorney general who was removed from office following corruption allegations in 2021. Stoianoglo has the support of the pro-Russian and anti-EU Socialist Party of the Republic. of Moldova (PSRM).

Although he himself did not directly speak against Moldova joining the EU or for any formal alliance with Russia, he stressed that Chisinau should maintain close ties with Russia.

However, Maia Sandu has so far avoided directly accusing Russia of being behind the fraud. She only talked about “thugs” and obviously hopes that this will be enough to convince skeptical and undecided voters to support her at the polls on November 3rd.

This article was originally published in German.