Off Sor – A Milestone in Moldovan Domestic Politics

The consolidation of authoritarian rule by Maia Sandu and PAS following the parliamentary elections is perhaps not the “end of history” in Moldova, but it is certainly here to stay for a long time. It seems that fugitive oligarch Ilan Sor and his sponsors are fully aligned with this view

On the first day of winter, Ilan Sor, who for many years had been actively involved in Moldovan politics financially, organizationally, and informationally, announced the suspension of his social projects (pension top-ups, budget grocery stores, regional infrastructure construction). He accused the Maia Sandu regime of blocking bank payments, stealing 50 million USD, and showing blatant disregard for the elderly and the needy. In essence, despite the vague announcement of launching some kind of nationwide front, Sor effectively disbanded himself and withdrew, temporarily or permanently, from the country’s political life. Thus, this moderately prominent and paradoxical chapter has come to an end. The self-elimination of all centers of the fugitive oligarch’s influence in Moldova began swiftly. Yesterday, Tatiana Cociu, who had served as mayor of Orhei, a structurally key region for Ilan Sor’s team, announced her resignation, also blaming the “repressive machinery of the regime” for the decision. Similarly, Veaceslav Lupov, the head of Taraclia previously supported by Sor, stepped down. Meanwhile, the authorities, refraining from comments, seem rather pleased, left alone with the so-called “systemic opposition”, which poses no real threat to their authoritarian rule. What does Ilan Sor’s self-removal from Moldovan affairs indicate? First and foremost, that he was not an artificial sparring partner for the PAS party, as other opposition figures now sitting in parliament have repeatedly claimed. It also shows that the fugitive oligarch himself (who once amassed vast wealth through banking fraud, offshore schemes, infrastructure management, and duty-free trade, and continues to benefit from various projects in Russia) was not the true funder of social initiatives. He was merely their public face and administrator. And now, with the investments having failed to pay off and funding cut, Ilan Sor has no choice but to acknowledge a new reality in which he is no longer responsible for the allocation of funds used to influence Moldovan politics. Incidentally, the question of how these budgets will be spent is quite intriguing. It is clear that the first claimants will once again be Igor Dodon and his team, especially if the Gagauz autonomy and Irina Vlah’s party, “Heart of Moldova”, continue to weaken. Alternatively, some more creative and effective use for these funds may finally be found. By stepping aside, Ilan Sor betrayed his voters and team members. Some, like Cociu and Lupov, had to resign from their positions. Others were barred from participating in the parliamentary elections and are unlikely to be able to return to the political parties that originally co-opted them. Still others, like Marina Tauber, were forced to leave Moldova for an extended period. Evghenia Gutul and Svetlana Popan ended up in prison, and it was only the news from the day before yesterday about the potential reorganization of the judicial panel (one of the judges failed the integrity check) that gave them some hope for the first time in a long while. Symptomatically, the low-key twist in the case of the Bashkan of Gagauzia coincided chronologically with the self-destruction of “Sor’s network”. But the main losers from Ilan Sor’s decisions are the voters. They have been left without representation in Parliament (the activity of the Democracy at Home party shows that no transfer of votes from the oligarch-controlled projects took place; rather, by falsifying the voting results, PAS agreed to add a small and spirited team led by Vasile Costiuc to the representative body in order to further fragment the opposition and please Bucharest). They are losing representation in regional authorities, and their voice no longer has any real influence on the country’s political landscape. Worse still, hundreds of such citizens received enormous fines that are nearly impossible to pay or challenge in court. Some of them, despite having no genuinely revolutionary political agenda, ended up as defendants in administrative and even criminal cases. The main consequence of Ilan Sor’s disqualification will be the further consolidation of Maia Sandu’s authoritarian regime and the homogenization of both Moldova’s domestic political life and its foreign-policy agenda. Not a single parliamentary party, apart from a few communists, will seriously challenge the course toward European Union membership, including the idea of achieving it “at any cost”. This also means the abandonment of neutrality, deeper cooperation with NATO, complications in relations with Transnistria and Russia, the church schism, the admission of migrants, the introduction of same-sex marriage, and other rules and norms that, in this narrative, undermine the sovereignty as well as the economic and ideological foundations of Moldovan statehood. None of the parties will demand impeachment, government dissolution, snap elections, or mobilizing “the street” to counteract the authoritarian tendencies of PAS, limiting themselves instead to modest criticism from the parliamentary rostrum. In turn, the ruling party will gain the opportunity for further centralization: without foreign financial and informational support, it will be extremely difficult for Gagauzia and Orhei to resist the consolidation of administrative control and to fight for the preservation of their own powers and identity. A certain pause is emerging in the country’s political life, and PAS will use it to strengthen its position ahead of the decisive battle over EU membership, that requires total control over resources and over public opinion.