Election fraud by corrupting voters started in the Republic of Moldova from food boxes and has reached an extremely dangerous proportion, when exorbitant amounts are spent to influence the voting option, expert Igor Botan stated in a public debate hosted by IPN News Agency. According to him, stopping the phenomenon of voter corruption has become a challenge for state institutions given that those who want to destabilize the electoral processes are extremely inventive and have large and dubious financial resources.
Igor Botan said the phenomenon of electoral corruption in the Republic of Moldova started from the remuneration of voters with food products in exchange for a favorable vote. Since this behavior of political actors was not penalized in time, it has gained momentum.
“The electorate has a certain behavior that has been formed over the years. During the over 30 years of Independence, we have gained a rich experience in the electoral field. Election fraud by corrupting voters started with very simple things. There were political parties that in exchange for food packages, packs of buckwheat or rice and a bottle of oil, received the vote. A saying from those times has even taken root: “I vote for rice”. Some of the citizens accepted such practices. The parties that did not have the possibility to corrupt the voters individually told the voters to take the gifts, but to vote for whoever they wanted. That was the whole reaction. In ten years, things have evolved. Parties with greater resources started to offer the citizens entertainment services, concerts that cost a lot,” said Igor Boțan.
He noted that in recent years the phenomenon of voter corruption has become a particularly worrying one. Making voters loyal through social projects financed from dubious funds is a new form of corruption of citizens.
“The third stage came, of social stores. Citizens are put on a register. They have cards and become customers of the party. The fourth stage came, of investments and social projects. The party declares that the leader is not a politician, but a manager, who has access to international resources and has an interest in making social investments in the Republic of Moldova. We see that this phenomenon of voter corruption follows an extremely dangerous upward trend. We know that about 10% of the citizens accept this philosophy: steals, but gives us too. It is an extremely dangerous issue for society,” explained the expert.
Igor Boțan also said that the state institutions should effectively fight voter corruption and adapt to the new methods of introducing dubious money to buy votes into the country.
“The electorate is segmented. There is the segment of decent people who do not accept the philosophy of “steal, but give us too”. The authorities should improve their tools to block such methods of influencing elections. The process of corrupting voters with rice evolved and reached exorbitant proportions. The Prosecutor General, at the sitting of Parliament, gave estimates of the flow of money that comes from abroad to corrupt voters, putting this at hundreds of millions. This way we can figure out how they intend to rig the elections, by corrupting voters. Due to modern technologies, the bitcoin, we cannot know what amounts of money are introduced into the Republic of Moldova to destabilize the elections. Those who use such methods are very inventive. We will see if the authorities manage to cope with this pressure on the Republic of Moldova,” said the expert.
The public debate entitled “What safeguards are needed against election fraud?” was the 309th installment of IPN’s project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates”, which is implemented with the support of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
