Moldova faces a tug of war between Russia and the West in two crucial votes

(CNN) — Voters in Moldova are casting their ballots Sunday in two crucial votes, which have been billed as the most consequential in the country’s post-Soviet history. One is for president, the other a referendum on eventual European Union membership; neither appears safe from pro-Russian meddling.

Some of those voting have been offered the chance to make a quick buck. Ilan Shor, a Moldovan oligarch with links to the Kremlin, has said he’ll pay people for working to elect a Russia-friendly candidate and stop the referendum passing.

Since being convicted in absentia for his role in stealing $1 billion from Moldovan banks in 2014, Shor has spent much of his time in Russia, where he has set up a political movement that Moldovan officials claim is attempting to interfere with the country’s presidential election and EU referendum.

Alongside a more sophisticated misinformation campaign, Shor has resorted to cruder methods to meddle with Moldovan politics. In a video posted to his Telegram last month, Shor said he would pay voters the equivalent of $28 if they registered with his campaign, with the prospect of more for good results.

“If you have worked well and most people in your area voted against (the referendum), the bonus that you receive personally from me on your card will be 5000 lei ($280),” he said.

Authorities say Shor’s offer is part of a wider campaign attempting to sway the two votes, which could determine whether Moldova continues its path toward the West or remains lodged within the Kremlin’s orbit.

Moldova, an eastern European country of some 2.5 million people sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, has veered between pro-Western and pro-Russian courses since the end of the Cold War.

Russia still has some 1,500 troops stationed in Transnistria, a sliver of territory which illegally split from Moldova as the Soviet Union crumbled and has since been run by pro-Russian separatists.

But Moldova’s pro-Western camp has dominated since 2020, when Maia Sandu – a Harvard-educated former World Bank official – won the presidential election by a landslide, promising to clean up the country’s judiciary and combat corruption, a major issue. Her Party of Action and Solidarity won a majority in parliament the next year. She’s now seeking a second presidential term and is considered the frontrunner.

As in many formerly Communist countries, Moldovan politics was rocked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Home to a Romanian-speaking majority and large Russian-speaking minority, many Moldovans had long viewed Russia as a benign big brother. But as Russian troops swept across southern Ukraine toward the port city of Odesa – near Moldova’s eastern border – and more than 500,000 Ukrainian refugees fled to Moldova, many in the country realized their own vulnerability to Russian aggression.

“We’re very grateful to Ukrainians because they defend not only themselves, but us – and maybe half of Europe,” Vadim Pistrinciuc, director of the Institute for Strategic Initiatives, a think tank in Moldova, told CNN.

Russia’s invasion drastically accelerated Moldova’s path toward EU membership. Although Sandu had set her sights on joining the bloc, Moldovan officials understood this was a distant prospect, said Nicu Popescu, Moldova’s then-foreign minister and deputy prime minister.

“But when the war started it changed the conversation entirely,” Popescu, now a distinguished policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN. Moldova, one of Europe’s poorest countries, was granted candidate status in June 2022.

The war has even ended Moldova’s near-total reliance on Russian gas, albeit at a cost. The country was plunged into an energy crisis when Russia’s Gazprom sharply cut gas supplies and hiked its prices, in what Moldovan officials alleged was an attempt to punish Sandu for tacking closer to Western Europe. With winter approaching, Moldova swiftly had to arrange alternative energy supplies from Europe. As of late last year, it no longer buys gas from Gazprom. “Moldova can’t be blackmailed anymore,” the country’s energy minister said this year.

Opposition ‘lost its self-identity’

Polling suggests that many in Moldova have been impressed by Sandu’s first term. A CBS-AXA poll found more than 36% of Moldovans supported Sandu, placing her far ahead of any of her 10 opponents.

If no candidate wins 50% of the vote on Sunday, a second-round vote will be held on November 3.

Sandu’s closest rival, former prosecutor general Alexandr Stoianoglo, trails with just over 10% of support among those surveyed. But analysts say his platform is a measure of the state of disarray in which Russia’s war in Ukraine has left Moldova’s opposition parties.

Despite running for the traditionally pro-Russian Party of Socialists, Stoianoglo says he supports Moldova joining the EU – something that would have been “unimaginable just a few years ago,” according to Maksim Samorukov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

“The war has destroyed their self-identity,” Samorukov told CNN, referring to the country’s Russia-friendly politicians. “They don’t know how to combine the new reality of Russia waging a bloody, brutal war against their neighbor, with their past slogan of… Russia as a traditional elder brother of Moldova.”

‘Russia is financing this’

Instead, officials say Russia is pouring more resources into trying to swing the EU referendum, when Moldovans will be asked whether they support constitutional changes that could lead to the country joining the bloc.

Moldova’s national police chief, Viorel Cernauteanu, said earlier this month that more than 130,000 Moldovans had been bribed by a Russia-managed network to vote against the referendum. He said more than $15 million had been transferred last month alone, to buy votes and even to pay people as much as $5,500 to vandalize public buildings, Reuters reported.

“It is clear that Russia is financing this,” Cernauteanu said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected accusations that Moscow is interfering in Moldova’s political process. “There are still many people in Moldova who support the development of good relations with our country,” he said at a briefing this week.

Alongside alleged vote-buying, Pistrinciuc said Moldovans have been bombarded by online propaganda. The messaging includes highly personal attacks against Sandu and warnings that joining the EU will lead to war and the foisting of LGBTQ ideology upon the country.

The online campaign is “so big it’s incomparable to the size of the country,” Pistrinciuc said.

While Moldovan officials are alarmed, Samorukov said the campaign of meddling was also a sign of Russia’s waning influence in the country.

“It reflects the loss of the national allure of Russia in Moldovan society,” he said. “It also reflects the total laziness and cynicism of the Russian leadership, who have just given up on any soft power techniques and resorted to the crude buying of votes.”

Popescu said that vote-buying can only achieve fleeting results: When the money dries up, so will the support. “It mainly works for people who don’t have strong convictions, people who are disappointed, who traditionally don’t vote,” he said. “There’s limits (to what can be achieved).”

But even if Sandu prevails in both the presidential vote and the EU referendum, he expects the Kremlin’s campaign to continue. “It’s more about destabilization and building stronger fundamentals for Russia-supported candidates for the parliamentary elections next year,” he warned.

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CNN’s Anna Chernova contributed reporting.