Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica, Deputy Speaker of the Saeima, Chair of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), chaired the meeting of the Committee in Paris. The participants discussed issues related to the functioning of democratic processes in Moldova, as well as elsewhere, including Hungary, Georgia, and Turkey.
At its meeting, the Monitoring Committee decided to make public a report by Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica and the Swiss member Pierre-Alain Fridez on the situation in Moldova in preparation for the upcoming presidential elections on 20 October. The full report will be available on the Assembly's website.
“We identified Russia’s efforts to influence the outcome of the upcoming Moldovan presidential elections, as well as the next year’s parliamentary elections. Particularly noteworthy is the flow of Russian money into the country with the aim of using it for the bribery of voters. It is estimated that only in the first half of this year, the Russian Federation has injected EUR 50 million to influence Moldova's domestic political processes. Russia is doing its utmost to prevent Moldova’s European integration,” Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica emphasised.
Russia uses both classical methods of interference – vote-buying, corruption, the activation of influencers – and information manipulation and the spread of disinformation. The next month's elections will be a test of Moldovan society's resilience to Russian interference attempts, Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica said. At the same time, these processes are a wake-up call and encouragement for other Council of Europe member states to strengthen their capacity to counter malicious interference attempts in their domestic political processes.
Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica, together with a delegation specifically set up by the Assembly, will soon revisit Moldova, assessing the situation ahead of the 20 October elections. The opinion on the resilience of democratic processes is one of the core functions of the Assembly and its Monitoring Committee.
Zanda Kalniņa-Lukaševica was elected Chair of the Monitoring Committee for two years in March this year, becoming the first Latvian to be entrusted with the management of the Committee. The Committee is responsible for assessing compliance with the obligations entered into by the Member States and their institutions under the Statute of the Council of Europe, the European Convention on Human Rights and other conventions concluded within the framework of the organisation to which they are parties.
Saeima Press Service