Victory at Any Cost for Sandu?

The ruling regime, backed by Western development partners, is making unprecedented efforts to ensure the best possible result for Maia Sandu in the first round, and an unambiguous victory in the second one. Apparently, they will stop at nothing, even  forgery

Semyon ALBU, RTA: The closer we get to the elections, the more administrative lawlessness we see around the presidential elections performed by the ruling regime. The lousy ratings of the registered favorite force her team to use less legal and fair methods of electoral struggle, involving one and another state institutions. The task is clear - to drag Sandu into the second round from a confident first place by all means to compensate at least slightly for the huge anti-rating of the head of state with a victory. For this purpose, the authorities do not hesitate to exploit any means, no longer paying much attention to elementary rules of decency, the interests of their citizens and complaints of the opposition. The Central Election Commission, which has long been under the control of the PAS, has been particularly “frolicking” lately. Referring to the SIS, it reduced the already meagre number of polling stations in the Russian Federation to only two, immediately destroying 26 thousand ballots. The motivation is simple – safety comes first. However, as politicians and experts rightly point out, no one had any intention of setting up voting centers in Belgorod or Kursk: they were supposed to open far away from the front line, where no hostilities are taking place. In fact, everyone understands perfectly well that by doing this they cut off the votes of our diaspora in Russia, which has enough reasons to hate the “yellow” government. As we can see, none of the PAS tops, not to mention the “queen” herself, was even going to work with Russian Moldovans, as if they do not exist for the regime. Well, and now for the CEC as well. Such a brazen decision raised questions even among loyal human rights organizations, who found the arguments “for” the cancellation of the stations unconvincing.  But who will listen to these human rights organizations in the corridors of power. At the same time, the CEC refuses to answer requests from opposition political parties in a boorish manner and under distorted pretexts, but they do not see any violations in the presidential election campaign. Minors, under the guise of informing people about the European integration referendum, are promoting Sandu? It’s fine. Massive use of administrative resources with dozens of cases of organized rides to meetings with voters, participation of priests in campaigning and even facts of bribery? We see nothing. Travelling of deputies, ministers and other officials to campaign events in towns and villages during working hours? As the saying goes, Quod licet Iovi.... A variety of methods are used to boost Sandu’s rating. Several million dollars are being taken out of the deficit budget for blatant pre-election handouts to pensioners: tens of thousands of them will be paid 2300 lei each. And the fact that it was announced a week and a half before the elections is pure coincidence. Referendum propaganda is being designed in such a way that it is closely intertwined with pro-Sandu propaganda. The foreign diaspora is actively manipulated, although its mood is not as rosy as it was four years ago. Finally, they order clearly biased opinion polls from well-trained and fed research offices, which show an incredible gap between Maia Sandu and all other candidates. Speaking of the other candidates. As you can understand, the authorities have little patience with them. For example, the public company Teleradio-Moldova, which is financed from public funds but has long been controlled by the ruling party, has started “banning” the opposition’s election videos, acting as a tough and uncompromising censor. If you suddenly criticize the regime’s policies too much in your video, speak against LGBT, etc., don’t expect to be broadcast. Pro-government TV channels are also engaged in censorship. At the same time, all alternative sources of information, both local and foreign, are jammed. I wrote about this in detail recently, so I will not repeat myself. In the meantime, the police arrest and liquidate PCRM leaflets for “unacceptable content”, which speak about the obligation to sell land to foreigners if Moldova joins the EU. Renato Usatii recently stated that Andrei Spinu organized groups of active police officers to spy on Alexandr Stoianoglo and Irina Vlah. And in case of disclosure they should claim that they work for Usatii himself and thus discredit him. Cunning! The disrupted presidential debate, which was supposed to bring together the three leading candidates - Sandu, Stoianoglo and Usatii - can be considered a vivid episode. The latter two showed up, but the president considered it acceptable to ignore the event, which surprised even the European media. Frightened by the unexpectedly edgy reaction both in Moldova and abroad, Sandu had to hurriedly promise to participate in the debates in the second round. Both the wheels of state and the European bureaucracy are promoting Maia Sandu’s victory. Only a lazy person has not been talking about “support visits” of a string of presidents and prime ministers in recent months. And the key one is the arrival of the old-new head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who is bringing a solid “aid” package of 1.8 billion euros for the elections. This is a kind of final touch. It is true that only one sixth of this amount is grant money, and the rest is repayable loans, but who cares - the main thing is that the figure is big and appealing. The matter does not come to money. The EU is doing everything to show that only Maia Sandu is credible and all her opponents are corrupt, oligarchic tinpots or “agents of the Kremlin”, or all at once.  The other day, the European Parliament even adopted a special resolution on the need to tightly support Moldova in the face of unprecedented hybrid threats from Russia. In addition, sanctions are imposed against our opposition politicians and journalists, their accounts and pages on Western social platforms and video hosting sites are blocked. Even the previously independent Telegram, after Pavel Durov’s arrest in France, began blocking the channels of oppositionists and even undesirable media. In general, gagging and withdrawing as best they can. The above-mentioned, by the way, is also necessary in order to apply one of the last resort means in the electoral struggle. This is, of course, removing rivals from the race. A number of candidates were winnowed through the registration period, but there is still room for maneuver. Rumor has it that three more contestants, whose “illegal financing” has already been disclosed, should be prepared for withdrawal. And as the last argument, there is still the falsification of results, if even overprotected Maia Sandu does not show the desired result. For this purpose, postal voting is prepared, and in general, through the diaspora, it is possible to try to draw the necessary figures. No one in the West will detect a trick, because there are indicators for 2020-2021. Embassy workers were also motivated in time by the so-called “child” benefits. In short, either way, I feel that the president will be dragged into the second round, and from there - into a second term. And it is unlikely that the opposition will be able to challenge such results, because the Western partners will be more than fully satisfied with this arrangement.