The imperfection of the legislation, the people’s disappointment and the disrepute of the Moldovan political class made the implementation of Russia’s projects such as Renato Usatyi and Ilan Shor successful. Such statements were made in a special edition of a program on TVR Moldova channel, IPN reports.

Mihai Cernencu, department chair at the Moldova Free International University of Moldova, considers the legislation is imperfect as it does not prevent discredited persons from running for public posts. “It is blasphemy for a person suspected of stealing billions of lei to be allowed to run in the local elections. The legislation is imperfect. As to Usatyi, it is clear that he is a project of Moscow. The law should provide that a person can run in elections if they have lived in the settlements in which they run for a long period of time. Now any person with a dubious past can come and become mayor overnight. We thus had two candidates with criminal cases running for the mayoralty,” he stated.

Director of the Resource Center for Human Rights (CReDO) Sergiu Ostaf said the low level of culture and the nostalgia of the Communist electorate determined the results of the local elections. “The situation in Moldova is similar to that in Belarus, which had the same European integration chances as the Baltic States before the coming to power of Lukashenko. The irresponsibility of voters and the populist statements led to the election of Lukashenko as head of state and the establishment of dictatorship,” he stated.