The parliamentary elections of September 28 were followed by a flood of accusations from both local politicians and officials in Moscow. Statements about “rigged elections”, “European Union interference” or “PAS victory only with the help of the diaspora” were propagated by Ilan Șor, Igor Dodon, Maria Zaharova and other political actors, being amplified by Moscow-affiliated media and massively distributed on social networks. These statements are contradicted by the reports of international observation missions, according to which the election was largely free and fair, even if not without problems and vulnerabilities. Moreover, the electoral legislation does not provide for the division of results between “inside the country” and the diaspora, all votes having the same value in determining the final result.
“The election results were falsified. PAS lost inside the country”
On September 29, a day after the parliamentary election, the fugitive and criminal convict Ilan Șor appeared on the Russian stations Россия 24 and Звезда, where he stated: “The ‘Victory’ Bloc does not recognize the results of the parliamentary elections. They were falsified, and we have hundreds of pieces of evidence (…) PAS came to power through dirty methods and continues its dirty games”, Șor declared for Россия 24. The same ideas were also conveyed on the Звезда station, as well as in a statement from the Victory bloc, distributed on Telegram. In the same interview for Россия 24, Șor accused the European Union of having “staged” the election in favor of PAS: “It is obvious that the falsification of the elections, as well as the entire pre-election madness, are staged by the EU”.
Șor’s statements were picked up by several institutions of press from Russia, some of which did not provide context, but also by some websites from R. Moldova, for propaganda purposes. The statements were distributed on Instagram, Ok.ru, Telegram (here, here, here, here) and Facebook accounts (here, here, here, here).
On the same day, the Socialist Party published a statement in Romanian and