Exiled Moldovan opposition head decries police crackdown

The authorities in the EU candidate state have announced raids over alleged election violations

Moldova’s police action targeting alleged electoral corruption amounts to political persecution of the opponents of the government, according to exiled opposition politician Ilan Shor.

The authorities in Moldova said on Thursday they are conducting 78 search warrants across the country targeting individuals described as “members and sympathizers of a criminal organization.”

Ilan Shor, who leads the opposition Victory political bloc from abroad, claimed that the actions are directed at silencing his movement. The bloc is trying to overturn its ban from taking part in the upcoming parliamentary election against the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity.

“Law enforcement is turning offices and homes upside down solely under this demented suspicion of interference in the 2025 election, which hasn’t even taken place,” Shor said. “These searches are just more political repression and intimidation of anyone who refuses to support those scoundrels.”

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Last week, President Maia Sandu, who Shor branded a “microdictator,” accused the Russian government of planning to covertly funnel more than €100 million ($115 million) to her political opponents ahead of Moldova’s parliamentary vote scheduled for September. The Kremlin rejected the claim, calling it another attempt by Chisinau to deflect attention from what it described as the government’s erosion of democratic norms.

Sandu has defended her administration’s crackdown on what she claims are pro-Russian criminal networks, saying these actions are critical to keeping Moldova on the path to EU membership.

Shor, who now resides in Russia, is the founder of the SOR party, which was outlawed by the Moldovan authorities in 2023 after its candidate, Evgenia Gutsul, won a regional election in the autonomous Gagauzia region.

Gutsul, now a leading figure in the Victory bloc, which was formed in 2024 by Euroskeptic politicians, including former SOR members, was sentenced this week to seven years in prison over alleged financial crimes. She denied any wrongdoing and called the verdict an attempt at political assassination.