The fight against electoral corruption is essential for maintaining a fair and equitable democratic process in the country. The authorities, nongovernmental organizations and citizens play an important role in preventing and denouncing corrupt practices, said experts invited to IPN’s public debate “Corruption technology: how and why does it work (or doesn’t) in the Republic of Moldova”.

Cristina Cucurudza, deputy director of the Center for Continuous Electoral Training, said that one cannot speak about free and fair elections without raising the violations committed in the election process, including acts of corruption, without understanding their origin and preventing them in the future .

“The institution I represent today works together with the Central Election Commission to prevent the commission of such violations through the programs we implement so as to ensure that the legal framework is applied correctly by all those who benefit from our services. So, on the one hand, we speak about the professional aspect. On the other hand, we speak about our quality of voters. Respectively, we don’t want our vote to be impacted by the phenomenon called corruption through which the vote is influenced. We want our ballot that reaches the ballot box to cover the proper path, which is it influences the correct distribution of seats, either of mayor of or local councilor,” stated Cristina Cucurudza.

The head of Promo-LEX’s observation mission for the November 5, 2023 general local elections Nicolae Panfil said the phenomenon of electoral corruption is known to public opinion, but concerted effort is needed to fight this scourge that affects the integrity of voters. “This phenomenon didn’t start now and we don’t see it for the first time. It started a long time ago in a situation when things were trivialized to say: “Ok, we have seen corruption. They stole, but offered or offer us too,” stated Nicolae Panfil, noting that the people should realize the consequences of such an attitude.

“If I refer to the phenomenon of corruption or electoral corruption, I can say that it is like an iceberg if you want, as we, as observers, if we possess information or have access to particular information about cases or potential cases of corruption, sometimes don’t have concrete information about details and with accounts. We should realize that we saw a small part, like in the case of an iceberg, and don’t know what’s going on there beneath. Corruption there is probably much larger. We see this, and we wrote about this in our reports, No. 2, No. 3,” said Nicolae Panfil. According to him, the role of the state institutions is to act more actively to counter electoral corruption, political corruption.

Igor Cristal, expert of the Congress of Local Authorities of Moldova, referred to one of the forms of voter corruption about which they speak less, but which is often used primarily in small localities. The voters are often enticed by empty promises that have nothing to do with the duties of a mayor or the councilors. “Anyone can make promises, but these promises should be legitimate. It seems to me that this aspect is omitted, but the legitimate promises should be tied to particular economic factors. If someone promises that a road will be asphalted, reference should be made to the origin of the budget for these projects,” stated Igor Cristal, noting that it is the responsibility of each citizen to inform themselves and to be able to differentiate between real and false reports.

The public debate entitled “Corruption technology: how and why does it work (or doesn’t) in the Republic of Moldova” was staged by IPN news Agency in the framework of the project “Stimulation of discussion in the mass media about traditional particularities of local elections and the need for Europeanization” which is supported by Soros Foundation Moldova.