Midweek Update
July 3 - July 7
This week we will be doing something a bit different at Moldova Matters. With the elections coming up on Sunday July 11th the news is moving a bit too fast for a Weekly Roundup to handle practically. Also, since Friday is the last day of campaigning before the legally mandated “quiet day” on Saturday, putting a newsletter out on Friday morning doesn’t make a lot of sense.
So, this week we will have a Midweek Update on Wednesday and a Weekly Roundup on Saturday July 10th. This will help us not to miss anything important and do the best we can to cover the last week of this tumultuous campaign.
Elections Roundup
Early in the campaign we took a look at the Platforms and Promises of the various political parties with an eye to understanding how they plan to govern. Since then the news we covered in Moldova Matters has slowly deteriorated into something resembling barely controlled chaos. Any political campaign is a messaging war - parties seek to promote their ideas or tear down their opponents. This is still going on but doesn’t make much local coverage. This is because most stories are something else, this is an information war. As we have discussed before, the Russian Government has budgeted large sums to influence the elections before. Additionally, local oligarchs are themselves quite interested in certain outcomes. This has created a news environment that is well primed for conspiracies as well as a number of actual conspiracies of “provocations.”. Today we will try and do a roundup of the latest stories in this area and provide the best context available in public reporting. Little is straightforward, and most likely things will become even more convoluted as the week continues.
Socialists March - “We Love Moldova”
This week, the Block of Communists and Socialists held a march through Chisinau entitled “We Love Moldova.” The message they were conveying was simple, their block is pro-Moldova while all others were “captured by outside interests.” Mr. Dodon gave a speech in front of the Presidential Offices saying that the incumbent, President Sandu, was controlled by external interests - implying the EU and US. Meanwhile, in counter protest, the AUR Party for Union with Romania marched to block the Socialists. They were prevented from doing so by police. Both sides got somewhat heated and former Chisinau Mayor and AUR party member Dorin Chirtoaca attempted to run through the Socialist march and physically attack Mr. Dodon. There is a video at that link and, as you can see, he was tackled and prevented from reaching the former President.
Ok, so what is the significance of any of this?
We need to recognize that this confrontational situation was great for both sides. AUR is lagging in polls and wanted the publicity of fighting with the Socialists. Mr. Chirtoaca got more press attention than he has in months. Meanwhile, the attacks by Unionists gave the Socialists tangible evidence of the “conspiracy of outside actors” they keep talking about. Did AUR and the Socialists collude and set this up? Or did they both just act in self interested, but not genuine, ways? It doesn’t really matter. The situation conveyed both their messages perfectly.
“Provocations” in Moscow?
In Russian, a “provocation” is a political term of art to describe a staged series of events or actions designed to present some message to the audience. If AUR and the Socialists did collude to create the situation listed above, that would be a great example.
Well, this week our favorite politician from a tiny party is back in the news again. Gheorghe Kavkalyuk, the leader of the PACE Party was previously responsible for the “woman arising from the coffin” campaign event as well as many other strange viral moments. This week, Mr. Kavkalyuk and some associates flew to Moscow, supposedly to meet with potential voters in the Moldovan diaspora. Arriving at the airport they were detained and held for more than 10 hours before being put on a plane back to Moldova. Mr. Kavkalyuk claimed he was in solitary confinement and that some machinations of Mr. Dodon and the Russians were conspiring to attack him and the PACE Party.
This story immediately had very serious problems. Firstly, just this week RISE Moldova’s investigative journalists uncovered secret messaging conversations from 2015 between Mr. Dodon and Mr. Kavkalyuk where they colluded on a variety of political and business arrangements. Using aliases, Kremlinovich (Dodon) and Gotsman (Kavkalyuk) discussed ways that Gotsman, then a senior police figure, could help Kremlinovich who was then President. This throws a lot of doubt onto the idea that Mr. Dodon would somehow ask the Russians to arrest and detain a friend of his who leads an utterly insignificant “rival” political party. The Moldovan Ministry of Foriegn Affairs agreed, and provided evidence that this was in fact a “provocation.” They noted that Mr. Kavkalyuk was traveling with party members who were barred from entering Russia - assuring their detention on arrival. Further, the party had return tickets for the same day meaning they never intended to leave the airport and talk to voters.
So what is the point?
The use of “friendly” parties in Moldova is common. The goal is always to split the votes of your rivals. Perhaps setting PACE up as credibly anti-Russian was the goal? Or perhaps just to break the news cycle that RISE started by associating Mr. Kavkalyuk and Mr. Dodon. Either way, this is not party messaging, but information warfare.
PAS and President Sandu - EU and US Puppets?
This week, a story broke from Brussels based paper “New Europe” claiming to have documentary evidence of a broad campaign by EU countries and the US to financially and materially support President Sandu and PAS in order to “kick the Russians out of Moldova.” First, we will briefly deal with the claims made in the reporting, then we will approach the credibility issues that exist. The article claims that 56 million euros are dedicated to defeating the Socialists and promoting PAS via the following vectors:
Money to NGOs and Think Tanks - Donor organizations like USAID, Soros, and more funnel grant money to NGOs, Business Associations and Think Tanks in order to support pro PAS initiatives and organizations. They claim over 250 NGOs are party to this arrangement.
Logistical Support - EU Countries are providing material logistical and bussing support for diaspora voters to overcome covid and travel restrictions to reach polling places.
Diaspora Bribes - Diaspora voters and polling place organizers are bribed in order to support PAS.
Cash Payments for Campaign Materials - Large cash support for PAS was funneled via diplomatic pouches, specifically during the recent diplomatic visits of heads of state to Moldova and of President Sandu to Germany.
Funding of “Friendly Parties” - a portion of this budget was allocated for parties friendly to PAS to use in the elections.
The article alleges that the German Government is the main coordinator of this effort with support from other EU nations, the UK and the US.
Breaking Down the Story
At its core, this story mixes facts with allegations of corrupt influence. It is true that many Development Partners of Moldova give grants for Democracy Building, Press Independence and more to Moldovan Civil Society organizations. These are explicitly non-political in the sense of supporting specific parties, but the fact that many such programs exist add some “credibility” to the reporting. What is less clear, are the allegations of bribery and cash payment support. It is notable that these mirror exactly the tactics and methods that the German newspaper Bild alleged Russia is using to support the Socialists in this election. Which on its face, looks like a traditional Russian “whataboutism” whereby they project and equivocate their own actions onto their rivals in an attempt to say “everyone is doing this… so what?”
So how credible is this reporting? Well it’s important to note that the article provided no clarity on what their sourcing was nor on how they confirmed the reporting. There were no documents provided though they had some screenshots of emails purporting to be from intelligence agents or other actors involved. But compared to the Bild article, or various other investigative articles in Europe or in Moldova, New Europe spends effectively no time explaining how they got this information.
So, lacking any evidence that average people or other news sources can independently verify, we are left asking - how credible is New Europe?
What is the New Europe News Service?
New Europe purports to be a Brussels based news service created in 1995. Before that, it was apparently named “Balkan News” and operated from Greece from 1993 to 1995 until moving to Brussels to take a more EU-wide focus. Importantly, it is not possible to find any information about either of these sites or newspapers online except through their own web page and twitter feed. There is no wikipedia page in any language for a publication claiming to be over 20 years old. That said, the site has lots of material on it dating back years and gives the appearance of covering news stories across the EU in an unbiased way.
But if you dig a bit deeper there are issues. Firstly, the reporter’s byline on the piece is “Kassandra;” noted on the site as a secret reporter supposedly embedded “deep within EU institutions.” Other than Kassandra, the only reporter seemingly working with New Europe is named Basil Coronakis, the founder. Things get stranger when you read other articles on the site. For example, in a recent article on New Europe discussing the possibility of a new cold war between the United States and China, things get very strange very quickly. The article is written in a confused, rambling style and openly discusses the issue in the context of the “submission of the white to the yellow race.”
So is New Europe credible? Speaking personally, I say that there are red flags almost everywhere. But it’s also possible to look and say, maybe it’s just some weird local paper who got a real scoop somehow? The seed of doubt is enough to get reporting in the Moldovan press. Which might be the whole point.
Note: if any intrepid readers can find something else out about New Europe either showing it to be a real and legitimate source, or not, share in the comments!!
So What do the Parties Say About this “Reporting?”
PAS has claimed that this is a paid “provocation” by the Socialists and that the article is totally fictitious. Meanwhile, the Socialists say that this article is obviously true! They state that they can prove it but rather than providing evidence they ask questions. “How could PAS be so supported by the people without the help of foriegn intelligence?” “Is it reasonable that PAS could raise their campaign funds legally?” etc. The Socialists appealed to the Prosecutor General asking him to open a criminal investigation on the matter.
So the waters are muddied, and the information war continues.
Polls - Once Again There are 2
Association of Sociologists and Demographers
Another poll by this Socialist affiliated research group has concluded that nothing in the race has changed since their last poll. PAS and the Socialists are virtually tied at 37% while the Shor Party polls at 6%. No other parties will get into Parliament. Once again, this polling group projects a narrow win for the unofficial coalition of the Socialists and Shor parties.
Barometer of Public Opinion
This week we got a new poll for this election cycle called the Barometer of Public Opinion or BOP. In general, the BOP is released a couple of times a year and asks many questions on Moldovan’s perceptions of politics and life in general. In this poll, coming less than a week before the elections, they found that of decided voters 43.5% were for PAS, 32.5% for the Socialists, 7.8% for Shor and no other parties would overcome the threshold to get into Parliament. Based on reported analysis this would result in 53 seats for PAS, 39 for the Socialists, and 9 for Shor. Giving PAS an absolute majority in the new Parliament. Traditionally the BOP has been considered a high quality poll, but given the close proximity to the election and the amount of news coming out there have not been many articles analyzing the output this year. Perhaps we will get one in the coming days.
Dueling Polls? What does this Really Mean?
Once again, we are talking about warring information. In general, polls in Moldova should be taken somewhat with a grain of salt. Especially since there are so few of them it’s not possible to create a “poll of polls” average. This season, we have basically 2 narratives. From the BOP and the Watchdog.md polls we can see PAS has a real chance at taking an absolute majority. But they disagree quite a lot on the strength of Shor. Watchdog does not see Shor getting into Parliament at all while the BOP sees them doing pretty well. Meanwhile, the Association of Sociologists and Demographers indicates that PAS will gain the most votes, but be unable to form a Government. In their polling, the Socialists and Shor together will be able to form a coalition. Now we know that the Association of Sociologists and Demographers has a history of working with the Socialists and has exhibited strong pro-Socialist bias in past pre-election polling. So one possible narrative is that this outfit is putting out misleading information in order to combat the narrative from other pollsters that PAS is showing a strong lead. It seems that this isn’t a normal disagreement of methodology but an attempt to control or influence the information space pre-election. What’s true? Well we’ll have to wait for the votes to be counted to know.
Threats of “Defending the Election”
To cap things off for this Midweek Update of campaign mayhem, Mr. Dodon is promising that the election may not end on election day. In a speech, he claimed that the Presidency is “captured’ by foreign powers and that he will not allow this to happen to the Parliament too. Mr. Dodon called on his supporters to be ready to take to the streets to “defend the election” if things do not go his way.
So this volatile cocktail gets another twist. We’ll check in later this week to see how things develop and what other surprises are waiting in the last days of this campaign.
Ending on a High Note!
Less of a “high note” than a “weird note.” This week, Amazon Prime debuted their new Sci-Fi Thriller “Tomorrow War.” Some close observers have noticed that Chisinau has a cameo! The movie is based on the idea that time travelers from 30 years in the future arrive in the present and tell the world that in the future a war is raging against an alien threat and humanity is losing. They are seeking soldiers to travel into the future to fight. A few minutes into the movie there is a montage of footage and Chisinau appears! The video is aerial footage of the National Square during a protest with 1000s of people in the square. It’s not clear what it is meant to be in the film, perhaps people queued up to volunteer to fight the aliens? While we don’t know, it’s kinda cool to see Chisinau on the big screen… even if it's just stock footage.
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