Is PAS Plotting “Electoral Lawlessness” in the Overseas Vote?

The ruling party’s focus on the diaspora increasingly looks less like an attempt to expand democratic participation of citizens, and more like a carefully crafted technology for holding on to power at any cost

The current electoral campaign is already unfolding as one of the most controversial and tense in the country’s recent history. At the center of the confrontation are, among others, overseas voters, whose ballots are becoming increasingly important. According to experts, it is largely up to them to determine not only the distribution of parliamentary mandates but also the future direction of the state’s development: integration into the European Union or a drift toward alternative geopolitical projects. The ruling regime has traditionally relied on the support of the diaspora. By Maia Sandu’s own admission, it was precisely the votes of citizens living outside Moldova that allowed her to win the last elections and maintain the course toward joining the EU. Now, just two weeks before the vote, the president has made a loud statement about alleged Russian interference in the electoral process, especially abroad. A remarkable thing, since until recently it seemed that in European countries the Kremlin was practically deprived of instruments to influence the political views of Moldovan citizens living there. “Russians have set their sights on the diaspora,” Sandu emphasized, accusing Moscow of using Orthodox priests for propaganda and deploying the “Matryoshka” bot network to spread disinformation. Clearly, such statements are not accidental, especially given that, according to sociological surveys, PAS and the opposition Patriotic Bloc are running almost neck and neck within the country. Consequently, it is the overseas electorate that becomes the strategic reserve capable of changing the final balance of power in parliament. The phenomenon of diaspora participation in elections deserves special attention. In 2016, just under 140,000 citizens voted abroad. By 2020, the figure had already reached about 15% of all those who went to the polls. By 2024, the number of ballots cast outside the republic exceeded 327,000. This was an absolute record, interpreted by government-aligned analysts as proof of the high civic consciousness of our overseas community. Judging by Sandu’s statements, this time the target is at least 400,000 votes from abroad in order, as she put it, “to be safe.” Thus, the diaspora is transforming from a significant electoral factor into a key resource for the ruling regime’s political survival. The scale of participation by overseas voters truly promises to exceed all expectations. For the first time in all the years of independence, 301 polling stations will be opened outside Moldova in 41 countries around the world. In addition, postal voting has been launched in ten countries. The Central Election Commission has already begun printing 860,000 ballots for voters abroad, although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had requested more than one million forms. Such “appetites” are a clear indicator that something large-scale is being prepared. Skepticism about such massive participation abroad is nothing new. Opposition parties and independent observers have repeatedly pointed out the opposite – that, according to all sociological norms, the electoral activity of Moldovans abroad has traditionally been lower than that of those living inside the country. Therefore, the sharp increase in votes in 2024 raised many questions. A recent example from Romania is cited, where during the spring presidential elections the number of votes from the diaspora nearly doubled in just two weeks between the two rounds. Therefore, experts quite reasonably attribute this not to genuine mobilization, but to the use of technologies for large-scale ballot stuffing. It is no coincidence that within the opposition, voices are increasingly speaking of PAS implementing a “Romanian scenario,” which is why, long before the elections, public opinion is being prepared for a “new diaspora record.” Under such circumstances, the opposition forces are well aware that the struggle for fair elections is unfolding primarily outside of Moldova. Recently, the Patriotic Bloc, the European Social Democratic Party, and “Our Party” announced plans to send the maximum possible number of observers abroad. On the one hand, this is a demonstration of unprecedented readiness to fight for every vote cast abroad. Yet the key question remains open: will these political groups have sufficient resources to cover all three hundred polling stations across dozens of countries? Tudor Ulianovschi, the leader of the Social Democrats, openly stated the risk of manipulations at the stage of data entry into the system, since during the presidential elections discrepancies were recorded between the actual number of people who voted and the final figures. The Patriotic Bloc intends to go even further, announcing plans for a parallel vote count. In addition, their observers plan to record each voter entering the polling station and compare this data with the number of ballots in the box. “Our Party,” for its part, is betting on legal mechanisms. For this purpose, its observers will document violations, conduct photo and video recording, and accompany mobile ballot boxes. PAS together with Maia Sandu, in turn, are relying on aggressive rhetoric to maintain mobilization within the diaspora, building it on traditional accusations against Russia. This serves several functions at once. First, it motivates the pro-European electorate, which perceives Moscow as a threat to fair elections. Second, it preemptively frames any criticism of the overseas voting process as Russian disinformation. It also cannot be ruled out that, in order to neutralize the opposition’s attempts to strengthen oversight at overseas polling stations, the authorities may undertake a series of countermeasures and resort to administrative leverage. This could include restricting observers’ access to foreign polling stations under formal pretexts, or accelerating the counting and tabulation of results, leaving minimal opportunities for parallel verification of the data. In addition, an information campaign may be launched aimed at discrediting the opposition and portraying it as “Kremlin agents” seeking to disrupt the elections. Thus, the ruling party’s strategy appears not only as a bet on maximizing the mobilization of overseas voters, but also as the creation of conditions under which the opposition will find it extremely difficult to challenge the legitimacy of the results abroad. As a result, we can see two potential scenarios. In the first, PAS secures a decisive advantage thanks to a record number of votes from the diaspora, while the opposition records violations but fails to prove their scale. In the second, massive discrepancies between actual turnout and the reported figures at foreign polling stations trigger an explosion of public distrust, with the opposition refusing to recognize the elections and provoking a large-scale political crisis. Today we have reached a point where overseas voting has transformed into a key instrument of political struggle and the main factor in the upcoming parliamentary elections. For the ruling party, it is a chance to preserve power and continue implementing the pro-European project. For the opposition, it is a battlefield for electoral integrity and an opportunity to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a single political force. PAS’s reliance on the diaspora increasingly appears less as an effort to expand citizens’ democratic participation and more as a carefully crafted technology of holding on to power at any cost. Should it indeed follow the path of “electoral lawlessness,” tailoring the numbers to fit a predetermined outcome, the result could be a total loss of trust in the electoral system and the open delegitimization of the future government.