Ilan Shor has fully exploited the vulnerable section of society, banking on people’s fear of change and financially motivating them to go out to vote for the options that he himself suggested, the president of the Center for Scientific Research in Psychology, Ștefan Popov stated in a public debate entitled “What is the “Shor phenomenon” based on?”. According to him, most societies are divided into conservative people opposed to change and people open to innovation and technology, and all the politicians aim to tip the balance in one direction or another, depending on their own interests.
The psychologist noted that the "Shor phenomenon" was developed in the Republic of Moldova for political purposes and is meant to use the most vulnerable categories of society for electoral purposes. The Shor camp uses people's fear to manipulate them and influence their voting option.
“Great emphasis is placed on the attempt to corrupt voters. From a psychological point of view, this social category was prone to corruption anyway. The financial incentive was just a motivation to go out to vote. Ilan Shor's statements were meant to induce fear in people. Fear is one of the fundamental mechanisms of manipulation and propaganda. It targets a specific segment of the audience. In all countries, there have been two camps, with two types of views. The same type of social debate is in the U.S., which is already a tradition between Republicans and Democrats. There are people with democratic and liberal views and people with conservative views and fear of change. Likewise, in this case, the Republicans place a lot of emphasis on fear, on the conspiracy theory and rely on a certain section of the population. If we are to be realistic, no matter how much we try to combat these phenomena, these camps will exist. In all societies, the share is almost 50% to 50%. We see this in our parliamentary, presidential or local elections, but there are small variations from one year to another depending on the context, the problems used by the political leaders use and through which they can influence a certain margin, a small part of the population," said the president of the Center for Scientific Research in Psychology.
Ștefan Popov explained that the people used by Ilan Shor for electoral purposes are a category of people who oppose changes and have conservative views. Shor's representatives use financial incentives to make this electorate go to the polls.
“Ilan Shor manipulates, relying on a natural fear of the people, the fear of change. There is a category of people who are always open to innovation and technology, and others are more conservative, that is they are afraid of what is new. Respectively, there are politicians who lay emphasis on development, improvement of living, and others place emphasis on avoidance of wars, of poverty, insisting on fear related to LGBT propaganda, etc. Respectively, they just need to stimulate this side, and the financial part is just an incentive for people to go out to vote. Probably, if it was not for corruption, fewer would have come out to vote for Shor’s options," noted Ștefan Popov.
The psychologist explained that the people living on the edge of poverty are strongly devoted to politicians who show empathy and offer them financial support.
"Ilan Shor has fully exploited the vulnerable section of society, the people who live on the edge of poverty, through these social stores. Let's imagine an old woman who counts the bani to buy a loaf of bread, when someone comes and offers her a loaf of bread that is by 0.50 bani cheaper. The person shows a very strong attachment to a so-called leader whom she perceives as a savior. From there on, it doesn't matter what that leader does, steals or corrupts. This type of characters are not professional psychologists, but they intuit very well the mentality of society and fully exploit these weaknesses,” said the president of the Center for Scientific Research in Psychology.
The public debate entitled “What is the “Shor phenomenon" based on?" was the 316th installment of IPN’s project "Developing political culture through public debates”. The project is implemented with support from the German Hanns Seidel Foundation.
