This Sunday, May 14, 2023, on the day of the presidential election in Turkey, the election of the governor (Baskan) of Gagauzia was held. If in Ankara it is still unclear who will win in the election match between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu, then in Comrat the “younger brothers” have decided who will win – dirty money.

Unfortunately, there was not a single candidate who would fight for the rights of the Gagauz minority, instead, two candidates, Yevgenia Hutsul and Hryhoriy Uzun, demonstrated which of them is more helpful to Moscow. To better understand the linguistic composition of the autonomous region, we can analyze the number of ballots printed in these elections. Thus, for the second round of voting for the head of Gagauzia, 93,572 ballots were printed, of which 3,617 (3.8%) were in the Gagauz language, 3,230 (3.4%) in Romanian, and 86,725 (92.6%) in Russian. We practically observe how Turkic the inhabitants of Gagauzia are, who undergo constant Russification to this day. It is not surprising that all the candidates in the Comrat elections approach the pro-Russian position, functioning, in fact, as tools of the Russian Federation, with the help of which they try to oppose the supposed pro-European vector announced at the central level.

Two candidates, one vision

The winner of these controversial elections was Yevgenia Hutsul, a candidate from the Shor party, who won 52.39% of the vote. He will become the Baskan of the Gagauzia Autonomy and a member of the Government of the Republic of Moldova, of course, if these elections are approved by the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Moldova, under which the Central Election Commission of Gagauzia is located. .

During the election campaign, Evgenia Hutsul, together with fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor, who was finally sentenced to 15 years, and Marina Tauber, the organizer of destabilizing demonstrations in the worst times, promised the Gagauz an investment of half a billion euros, that is, half of the amount stolen by robbing Moldovan banks, which is generally called ” stealing a billion.” They also assured the people of Gagauzia of the construction of an amusement park GagauzLand modeled after OrheiLand, a real money laundering business, such as the airport concession in Chisinau. And the most important thing in the campaign is that the most popular Russian artists and supporters of the war in Ukraine, namely Philip Kirkorov, Stas Mykhaylov and Mykola Baskov, campaigned for the Shor party candidate.

On the other hand, the former deputy of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova and the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia, Hryhoriy Uzun, was supported by the Socialist Party, headed by the former president of the Republic of Moldova, Igor Dodon, where he received a rather good result of 47.61%. At pre-election campaigns, Igor Dodon, together with the candidate against whom a criminal case has been opened for bodily harm, promised that when Dodon becomes president again, they will bring Vladimir Putin to Gagauzia. Of course, this election campaign was also an opportunity for Ihor Dodon to campaign for the Socialist Party from the new position of PSRM leader, but this time without success.

European investment, pro-European candidate?

Unfortunately, not even one candidate with pro-European views took part in the two rounds of election voting. Considering the fact that Gagauzia received its autonomy in 1994 under the pressure of the Russian Federation and implemented by voting for the Agrarian Party of Moldova with pro-Russian views, since then the Gagauz without exception chose the eastern vector.

Despite the fact that the European Union and Romania have always supported and economically stimulated Comrat with projects worth tens of millions of euros per year, the people of Gagauzia have still not understood who is investing the most in the region. And here we can mention the best national road in the Republic of Moldova, which leads to Comrat, not to mention that Gagauzia is the region that received the most European grants per capita in the country.

Why didn’t we have a pro-European candidate who would open the eyes of citizens and show hundreds of local development projects that are part of UTA Gagauzia through the modernization of schools, public institutions, the construction of kindergartens and aqueducts? It was not only the ruling party’s duty to nominate a candidate, but also other pro-European and unionist parties.

The election campaign would be a great opportunity to launch a real information campaign about the help that the European Union and its member states offer every day. However, a simple Gagauz, due to access to information sources, intoxicated by Russian propaganda, believes that Gagauzia is financially supported only by the Russian Federation, and does not trust even Turkey, to which he should feel closer.

Should the election be declared invalid?

I would like to remind you that these days the Constitutional Court is also undergoing a legal process, initiated by the government of the Republic of Moldova, regarding the recognition of the party “Shor” as unconstitutional. Another reason to realize the uncertainty of this election. There is a lot of evidence that the Shore Party is in fact an organized crime group, it just needs to be presented for the constitutional judges to recognize.

There is no doubt that these elections were rigged through voter buying and corruption, as happened during the 2021 campaign for the parliamentary elections in the Republic of Moldova. The authors of these falsifications were once again representatives of the Shore party, which is currently offering money to Moldovan citizens to participate in anti-government protests, just as they bribed voters to vote in various ballots.

It is important to note here that there are suspicions not only of voter buying by both candidates, but also of Shor party representatives buying support for local actors, as well as candidates in the first round of the Baskan Gagauzia elections. Thus, it is very difficult to understand how such elections can be recognized as valid, but the court in this sense will definitely be, and the judicial system will decide the fate of these elections, which can not be called free or equidistant, but only corrupt. – Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro