Double Standards of the West Is a Key Resource of Maia Sandu’s Team

Anton ŠVEC

The era of political postmodernity means that it no longer matters how the vote is cast or how it is counted - only what the West says about it matters

Maia Sandu’s flattering political campaign and the transition to conciliatory rhetoric between the two rounds of elections will hopefully no longer fool anyone. The electoral base of the incumbent president is not only stagnating, but also showing a downward trend, since rash aggression of her supporters even quite loyal voters. In recent days, there have been several video messages from citizens who voted for Sandu but found themselves on the published lists of “public enemies” who allegedly sold their vote to Ilan Sor. These people faced hatred (in a normal country such a “witch hunt” would be inadmissible, even if the fake was confirmed), which caused them real emotional suffering, and now, following the situation, they will think twice about who to vote for on 3 November. Radical calls for discrimination, deportations and aggression, together with the openly racist messages against Alexandr Stoianoglo, ignored by the police, the CEC and the pro-government press, deprive Maia Sandu of the possibility of repeating the 2020 scenario, when she pretended to be the “president for everybody”. Now such attempts by the court media service are only ironic. In the 10 days since the election, Maia Sandu has only disappointed more of those who had already given her their vote, but has failed to mobilize additional supporters. One of the reasons is the refusal of all participants of the first round to support her candidacy in the second round. Even the radically pro-Western politicians who performed at the statistical margin of error on 20 October could not do this. At the same time, most of her rivals, including those she ingratiated herself with at the 21 October briefing, made it clear to their constituents that the PAS regime must step down. Ion Chicu was the first to be appealed to by the head of state, declaring that he would never support “the power of Recean, Grosu and Spinu”. Later, Irina Vlah and Vasile Tarlev called for voting against Maia Sandu. Western advisers in the President’s Office relied on the help of Ion Ceban, at least in Chisinau, but the latter, already feeling his leadership position in the future parliament, refused to get involved with the “yellow power”. The key point is Renato Usatii’s stance, who stood in favor of Maia Sandu in 2020. The former mayor of Balti is hardly in full command of the 150 thousand votes of his protest electorate, but both voters and electoral headquarters were waiting curiously for his signal. The fact that Usatii refused to call for voting for the incumbent president and criticized the PAS board, saying that he himself would not go to the elections, can be considered an undoubted success of Alexandr Stoianoglo (naturally, those who voted for Renato Usatii in the first round are in no way supporters of the ruling party). Moreover, Renato Usatii drifting away from the regime, despite the habit of keeping his “finger on the pulse”, indicates that he does not have much faith in the success of Maia Sandu on 3 November. Certainly, all these points do not predetermine the outcome of the vote. Inside Moldova, the incumbent government has little chance, but the resource of the diaspora remains extremely crucial. Maia Sandu dominates there amid virtually unlimited fraud opportunities. Last week she already set a clear task for Moldovan diplomats - the diaspora must provide 350,000 votes (i.e. about 100,000 more than in the first round; about 850,000 ballots can be printed). If the CEC and observers do not prevent such manipulation, despite its absolute improbability, Alexandr Stoianoglo’s chances of winning will be minimal. To date, it is hard to imagine what tools the ex-prosecutor’s team could use to fight sanctioned widespread ballot fraud in Western European countries, the United States and Canada. The situation in Moldova is strikingly different from that in Georgia, where parliamentary elections were held the day before and the Georgian Dream won. In Georgia, the ruling party controls the country as a whole, but does not have a majority in the capital or in the diaspora. The European Union and the United States considered this arrangement sufficient to organize protests through a pro-Western president and refusal to recognize the results of the vote. Although the observation mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights recognized the elections as generally free and competitive. In Moldova, the government has lost the country, but still generally controls Chisinau and foreign voters. It also relies on strong support from the West, which simultaneously recognized the results of the first round and the plebiscite on 20 October. Meanwhile, the OSCE election observation mission gave a much less complimentary assessment of the electoral process in Moldova. Thus, the OSCE stated that the principle of equality in the electoral campaign had been violated due to media favouritism towards Maia Sandu, as well as inadequate conditions for collecting signatures and examining appeals. They criticised the authorities for the use of administrative resources, the lack of transparency in handling complaints, the refusal to register observers (including from the OSCE), the exclusion of candidates and the “ghost voters” on voter lists in Transnistria and abroad. At the same time, the organisation did not say anything about the “300,000 venal votes”, in fact debunking another fake from the authorities. However, the EU and the USA did not pay any attention to these findings and rushed to internationally legitimize the results of the vote. The CEC ignored the demands of Vladimir Voronin and Vasile Tarlev for a recount. Thus, there are situations in Moldova and Georgia when neither the voting itself nor even the counting of votes is important. The only thing that matters is whether Brussels and Washington will be pleased with the outcome of the elections. If the West is satisfied with the outcome of the second round, they will do everything possible to give it external legitimacy. If the PAS regime fails to steal enough votes in the diaspora, the U.S. and EU will undermine Moldova by calling for protests, as they have already done in Georgia. How the nationals living in the country, who have already had their referendum vote stolen from them, will react to this postmodernity that makes a mockery of legality and suffrage, is the most pressing question. What are our people ready to do to defend Moldova’s sovereignty? And do they actually have the strength to fight for it?