A new round of TV debates between Igor Dodon and Maia Sandu allowed the viewers to see all kinds of acid remarks made mainly by the Party of Socialists’ candidate against his opponent of the Party “Action and Solidarity”, say the authors of a fact-checking article produced within the Sic! project, IPN reports.
In the debate, Igor Dodon accused Maia Sandu of taking part in the theft of the US$1 billion from the banking system of the Republic of Moldova, whose repayment was made the burden of the people. Maia Sandu denied having contributed to this mega-fraud, saying she voted only for the people not to lose their deposits at the banks that encountered problems. The authors of the Sic! article say Igor Dodon’s assertion should be regarded as an accusation of theft as it sounded namely like this. When this subject is raised, two distinct elements must be considered – the theft itself when a sum equal to about US$1 billion was stolen from three banks, and the provision of emergency loans to the insolvent banks by the National Bank of Moldova, to the value of over 15 billion lei, under state guarantee, by two Government decisions.
“Maia Sandu wasn’t minister of finance to be somehow associated with the relationship between the Government and Banca de Economii, for example, and definitely has no connection with the stealing of money from the banks. It’s clear that Igor Dodon is not right for now,” say the authors of the article.
Also, both of the candidates accused each other again of ties with the first deputy chairman of the Democratic Party (PDM) Vlad Plahotniuc. Maia Sandu said she never spoke to Vlad Plahotniuc and reminded that the first deputy chairman of the PDM was the one who opposed her appointment as Prime Minister at the beginning of 2015. There is no confirmation of this assertion provided by the Democrat, but sources who took part in negotiations told the press that Maia Sandu wasn’t supported by Plahotniuc. “The four TV channels controlled officially by Vlad Plahotniuc presented Maia Sandu most often in a negative context, even after Marian Lupu withdrew from the presidential race. This fact refutes Igor Dodon’s assertion.”
The Sic! article says there are a number of elements supporting Maia Sandu’s assertion that Igor Dodon has ties with Vlad Plahotniuc. Some of these are indirect and can thus serve as reason for speculations. However, Igor Dodon flied by Vlad Plahotniuc’s private planes for several times and didn’t vote for his dismissal from the post of First Deputy Speaker of Parliament in the hearing of November 15, 2012. The dismissal proposal was put forward by the Communist parliamentary group, but this was short of votes.
Igor Dodon also said that Maia Sandu is for union with Romania and for joining NATO. The analysis authors say Maia Sandu actually avoided giving a clear answer as to NATO, saying she will promote what the people will decide and no referendum on the issue will be held during the next five years (the President’s term in office is of four years). As regards the union, Maia Sandu admitted that in a TV program earlier she said she would vote ‘for’ in an eventual referendum, but this was her position, not of the party at that time. The politician said that she personally would vote ‘for’, but would take decisions based on the people’s will. “This way or another, the first part of Igor Dodon’s assertion is not fully true (there is a big difference between the present ‘I want to vote’ and the conditional ‘I would vote’). As to the second part of the assertion (joining of NATO), there is no argument to show that Igor Dodon is right,” say the authors of the Sic! article.
The full article can be read in Romanian on the website of the project sic.md. Sic.md is a project of IPN News Agency implemented with the assistance of Soros Foundation Moldova.
