Madalin NecsutuChisinauBIRNMay 8, 202311:23Moldovan prosecutors suspect fugitive oligarch’s party of breaking the law by offering bribes for votes in local elections in autonomous region.
Ilan Shor Party candidate Evghenia Gutul (C), during an electoral rally in Comrat, Gagauzia, on April 28, 2023. Photo: Evghenia Gutul Facebook page
Moldovan anti-corruption prosecutors on Sunday raided the offices of the pro-Russian Ilan Shor Party in the southern autonomous region of Gagauzia, suspecting they have used illegal means to solicit votes for the party’s candidate, Evghenia Gutul, in elections for the post of governor.
Investigators says activists of the Shor Party have been offered 15,000 lei [about 750 euros] each if they manage to convince 30 voters to vote for Gutul in the second round of the local elections in Gagauzia on May 14.
“Representatives of the electoral staff of the candidate of the Shor Party allegedly committed violations of electoral legislation,” the General Police Inspectorate said.
Authorities say they found found proof of the organised transportation of voters to polling stations in return for payment, the placement of electoral material in unauthorized places and the acceptance of money by an organized criminal group that was not declared to the Central Electoral Commission, CEC.
During their searches, law enforcers found lists and documents with information about people and the financial means paid by Ilan Shor Party. They confiscated money, mobile phones and other devices containing information about the operation.
In response, the fugitive oligarch, Ilan Shor, called the arrests and searches in Gagauzia just a week before the elections “a disgrace that exceeds all legal and moral limits.”
After the first round of elections on April 30, the two candidates who came first were Evghenia Gutul, with 26.5 per cent, from the Shor Party, and Grigori Uzun, with 26.4 per cent, from the Socialist Party in Moldova, PSRM.
Shor called on Turkey, China and Russia to try to stop what he called “the unprecedented abuses by [President] Maia Sandu’s regime”.
Shor was definitively sentenced in April to 15 years in prison for the so-called “Grand Theft” of one billion US dollars from the Moldovan banking system between 2012 and 2014.
He is now hiding in Israel, where he holds Israeli citizenship. Moldova and Israel do not have an extradition agreement.
Parliament voted on April 27 to remove Shor’s parliamentary mandate. He appealed to the Moldovan Constitutional Court, but on May 5, the court rejected the appeal.
Source link: balkaninsight.com
