Mass Violations Is the Price of Maia Sandu’s Victory

Christian RUSSU

The stakes in the 3 November election were unprecedented, and equally unprecedented were the abuses before and during the vote

One of the most difficult and energy-consuming election campaigns was overcome. Not only for the ruling party and the opposition, but also for the entire population. And the main reason for this lies in the blatant interference in the self-regulating ecosystem of the state only for the sake of achieving the main goal - to retain power - at any cost. Over the last four years, the regime has put the country into such a state of dormancy that democratic norms themselves have become an impossible burden for state structures that have lost their functionality. We can recall how, during the reign of communists or democrats, Moldova’s legal foundations were subordinate to the interests of specific individuals (Voronin, Plahotniuc). They rewrote the Constitution or interpreted its provisions in a perverted manner. The result in the end was the same - the rapid fall and political oblivion of these persons. However, between the crises there were periods of calm, when democratic institutions were restored in the demonopolized political field, the branches of power regained their capacity and independence, and the civil sector revived. Now we are not lucky. After the beginning of the PAS omnipotence, under approving speeches from Brussels, the Moldovan deep-state in the person of middle-level officials with their principles and values was recognized as no longer relevant, having been thoroughly eviscerated or corrupted to work outside the administrative framework. We can say that from the era of “rule of telephone” in justice and other structures we have switched to a closed digital system, where in fact there is no room for autonomy. And this whole mechanism, like a parasite, has almost led its master - the state - to ruin. The constitutional referendum, conceived as a brilliant and win-win trick, turned out to be a blow not only to the formed narrative about the non-alternative course to European integration, but also to quite tangible things, such as the well-being of citizens. After all, real politics cannot be cancelled by Sandu’s decree, and the assessment of the PAS results in Brussels is not reduced to ritual words of support, even from top functionaries. Paradoxically, the ambitions of the republic’s leadership to change the existing political culture in Moldova and to instill Western standards of party building have had the opposite effect, not prolonging but significantly shortening the life cycle of PAS. We see all this now and will see more in the upcoming parliamentary elections. The current wake-up call from citizens about the lawlessness has taken both the sponsors and their wards by surprise. It is a pity that there was no one to use this vote of no confidence in the authorities. This is not the United States, where mistakes are not forgiven. Our opposition, it seems, did not believe in success itself, modestly wishing only to take a bigger bite out of the rating for the next election campaign. The stakes in the 3 November election were unprecedented, and equally unprecedented were the abuses before and during the vote. This is proved by the example of citizens from the left bank: if four years ago they were prevented from going to the polling stations by individual persons, now we saw obvious administrative measures to disrupt voting by “mining” polling stations and bridges, refusals to exercise the right to vote to those who had already come, removal of ballot boxes and much more. The groups of international observers from the Council of Europe and the OSCE, who were cleaned up at the Chisinau airport of representatives of non-Western countries, in fact recorded a lot of violations: ballot boxes were not properly sealed, access to the voter lists and control of voting was carried out by persons unrelated to the staff of the election commissions. Interference in the activities of precinct commissions was recorded, there were facts of intimidation of people both near and at the polling stations, and at some of them surveillance cameras were placed in such a way that the secrecy of the vote was out of the question. Electronic systems malfunctioned, as did the loss of connection. Notable deviations were observed during the vote count in those polling stations where observers were able to access. Out of 69 procedures observed, in seven cases they negatively assessed the process due to non-compliance with existing requirements, violations and flaws. Among them – counting ahead of time by election commission members in violation of the regulations (apparently, someone needed operative data); lack of calculation of signatures in the sheets with electoral lists (checking whether the number of voters who were given ballots corresponded to the number of ballots in the ballot boxes); voting stamps were “lost” before the ballot boxes were opened (probable ballot box stuffing). In one third of cases, the chairpersons of commissions did not show the ballots themselves to the audience during the counting. In 14 polling stations the validity of contested ballots was not determined, in 11 cases precinct commissions could not fill in protocols with the voting results. 7 protocols were filled in without PEC members, and another 14 were signed in advance. Finally, in 29 copies of protocols were refused. The work of superior bodies, such as the District Election Councils, where materials from polling stations were collected, deserves special attention. In one of them, OSCE observers were not allowed to verify the results protocols. Observers from the opposition candidate were allowed to visit only 3 out of 36 district councils. Irregularities were found in the work of 10 of them when protocols were processed. Maia Sandu’s night messages to the diaspora and Chisinau residents to vote more actively did not go unnoticed. International observers considered such actions to be a violation of the law on the observance of silence on election day. Could these irregularities have influenced the outcome of the voting on the territory of Moldova? Given the unanimous verdict of the Council of Europe and the OSCE on the use of administrative resources by Maia Sandu and her team, the answer to this question is obvious. It seems even more obvious when it comes to diaspora voting in foreign polling stations, where there were no international observers or representatives of the opposition candidate. In this sense, in the light of the approved election results, it was not the recognition of mistakes by the incumbent authorities, nor the promise of personnel changes, but the decision to reward more than a thousand Moldovan officials from 43 ministries and agencies with a bonus of up to 50% of their basic salary for their contribution to the European integration process. Such a bonus, apparently, should dull the feeling of guilt for the compromises that bureaucrats made in order to keep their jobs.