The EU-supported leadership in Moldova today sentenced a leader of the opposition, Evgenia Gutsul, to seven years in prison on charges of illegally financing the Euroskeptic SOR party. Gutsul had won the 2023 election to head Gagauzia, a predominantly Russian-speaking region in southern Moldova. Like Ukraine, Moldova had electrification, dams, nuclear plants, etc., built up during the Soviet period, and both have had major sections of their populations in favor of such projects, with the concomitant industrial and agricultural developments.
The SOR party platform includes active state intervention in selected areas of infrastructure—transport, energy, communications, housing, and pharmaceuticals—investment in modernized collective farms, and the nationalization of foreign-owned energy companies. To support such projects, they include free universal health care and public education. If that weren’t enough for Brussels, the SOR platform includes a commitment to independence and military neutrality.
In May 2023, the Chisinau authorities raided the SOR Party offices in Gagauzia, one week after Gutul had won in the April 30 local election, and one week prior to the May 14 runoff. Gutsul and party officials were accused of violations of electoral legislation. The authorities claimed they found proof of the organized transportation of voters to polling stations, payments to party workers of around $25 for each vote, and the placement of electoral material in unauthorized places.
Today Gutsul’s lawyers published her statement, saying that the ruling “has nothing to do with justice.” Rather, it is “a political execution, planned and carried out on orders from above.” The sentence is meant to intimidate critics. “Today it’s me behind bars—tomorrow it could be anyone who dares to criticize the authorities. This is not a sentence for me—it’s a sentence for the entire democratic system of Moldova.”
Moldovan President Maia Sandu has prevailed in her last couple of elections under highly suspicious vote counts, centered around the suppression of the vote of Moldovans who live in Russia, a large category, along with enhancing the reported totals of voters who live in the West.
