“The Action and Solidarity Party tried to show that they are pro-Europeans, that they want to develop this state and not bury it, but their actions show something else entirely: collaborations with pro-Russian forces, propagandistic, manipulative messages, gathering PR from graves, chasing unionists away from demonstrations, hiding their financiers (PAS is a party financed directly from billions),” Dionisie Rusu, then a blogger affiliated with the Democratic Party of Moldova led by Vladimir Plahotniuc, said in 2019. Four years later, however, the party he criticised chose to back him in the race for mayor of a locality in the Soldanesti district.

“The ‘Shor’ political party is the only party capable of changing things in the Republic of Moldova,” reads a March 2020 statement signed by Iurie Porcescu, who announced he was joining the ‘Shor’ party. In 2023, he too is backed by the ruling party for a new term as mayor.

Marcel Bobeica, another ruling party candidate for mayor, has also previously protested against the party he now represents. In 2019, he, with a turkey in his hands, stood in front of the presidency, expressing his outrage at Plahotniuc’s removal from power.

At the end of September, the ruling Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) announced that 702 mayoral candidates would be backed by “Team Europe”, the slogan under which the party has chosen to campaign for the 5 November 2023 local elections.

In an interview with ZdG, Igor Grosu, president of PAS, says that the party he leads supports candidates who are former members of other parties, but that their political backgrounds have been subject to central discussions. “This is their hallmark for a long time, for generations. You hang with the bandits, you go to the bandits. […] We put them through discussions at the local level, teams discuss, teams recommend. We, in turn, also discuss at national level and where there are no value discrepancies in their behaviour, in their past, such cases are accepted,” Grosu notes. However, ZdG has found that there are at least a few cases where “value discrepancies” stand out.

From Plahotniuc-affiliated blogger to mayoral candidate, it’s just a step

Dionisie Rusu, known in the public space as Denis Rusu, as he used to sign his political articles during the heyday of the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM), is the PAS candidate for mayor in the village of Găuzeni, district of Șoldănești.

“I decided to come back to run for mayor, supported by the PAS team! I am not coming alone! I come with a team of people with character and will. An honest team, which I look at with pride. Dear people of Găuzeni, on 5 November I invite you to vote No. 1 on the ballot paper. I invite you to vote for a man and a team that you will never hear anything bad about,” Rusu announced on his Facebook page on 12 October.

But a few years ago, during the rule of the Plahotniuc-led PDM, blogger Denis Rusu, who was also a member of the PDM youth team and described himself as “an ordinary person with social and political concerns, who has nothing out of the ordinary and who cannot accept some things, such as manipulation and absurd victimisation”, had a completely different opinion of the party he now represents. Rusu regularly wrote articles and published them on his blog and on the Vox Publika platform, a website run at the time by Vladimir Plahotniuc-affiliated Publika TV. At the time, Rusu was critical of the political party supporting him in the 5 November 2023 elections, regularly distributed information about PAS party members and heavily promoted the ideas of Plahotniuc’s party. Maia Sandu, who was PAS president at the time, was among the most frequent targets of Rusu’s attacks and falsehoods in the public arena.

“Sandu and Nastase have found a way to free Platon”, “Maia Sandu’s indifference to the diaspora”, “Maia Sandu signed that the stolen billion became state debt!”, “Maia Sandu risks up to 2 years in prison!” – these are some of the falsehoods Rusu signed on his blog. In addition to the false information he placed in the public space, Rusu also distributed caricatures, the main character being Maia Sandu.

Source: denisrusublog.wordpress.com

Even though the current president was one of the favourite targets of Rusu’s attacks, he now confesses that his rapprochement with PAS began precisely because he saw Maia Sandu as a politician worthy of support. “To be honest, I started supporting the president first, then I thought about PAS, about the party,” Rusu says, when approached by ZdG on the subject.

Dionisie Rusu was also active on social media at the time. He frequently distributed posts and comments supporting Plahotniuc’s PDM and criticising the PAS founded by Maia Sandu. However, after the PDM left the government and Plahotniuc left Moldova, he deleted his old Facebook account and created a new one in 2021. On his new profile he stopped distributing texts critical of the party he is running for in 2023.

While Rusu currently defines the team supported by PAS in the village of Găuzeni as one composed of “people of character and will”, in 2017, he said in an article published on his blog that “PAS tried to show that they are pro-Europeans, that they want the development of this state and not its burial, but their actions show something else: collaborations with pro-Russian forces, propagandistic, manipulative messages, gathering PR from graves, chasing unionists away from demonstrations, hiding the financiers (PAS is a party financed directly from billions)”. In 2019, Rusu insisted on the same plea, and in an article published on Vox Publika he said that “we have always known that Maia Sandu’s personality has links with dubious individuals or even coming from mafia clans, and it is good that she finally admits that she has a party of thieves behind her.”

Asked by ZdG, Dionisie Rusu told us that the allegations we referred to were not necessarily aimed at PAS, but at people protesting with PAS and, by their presence, discrediting the party. We asked him if he thought that he could discredit PAS, since in the past he had links with Plahotniuc’s party, which today is the subject of several criminal cases. “I don’t think I discredit PAS, because I didn’t have a big impact, I didn’t make propaganda, I never fought against PAS,” says Rusu.  

Former deputy-chairman of the Democratic Youth: “PAS has overcome certain preconceptions and we see among the candidates former members of the former PD youth team”

In 2019, in an article, Rusu pointed out that “Maia Sandu breaks her word and accepts the route, which once again shows that she has other principles”. I asked Dionisie Rusu, a former member of the PDM youth team, if he doesn’t think that his actions also represent “political traitorism”, since he chose to leave the PDM and represent PAS. 

“I was a student then. Together with friends we were members, we were not involved in big politics, we did not have positions, salary from PDM. I supported PDM because I had vision and I believed. I see it as something else, when you have a high position, I was a student and I believed so then. I have not been a member of the PDM for many years. Now I’ve become more informed, I’ve seen more and I’ve taken this path,” Rusu explains.

After Dionisie Rusu announced that he would run for PAS in the local elections, several figures known in the public arena for their intense support of the PDM led by Plahotniuc published texts encouraging his participation in the November 5 election. Ion Harghel, former vice-president of the PDM Youth Organisation, known for his affiliation with Plahotniuc, expressed his support for the PAS candidate for mayor of Găuzeni, adding that he was “glad that PAS has overcome certain preconceptions and here we see among the candidates of this party former members of the youth team of the former PD”.

PAS leader from Soldanesti: “The chairwoman of the Găuzeni organization is a relative of his and he made her a good feature”

Boris Popa, president of the Territorial Organisation of PAS Soldanesti, says he knows nothing about Denis Rusu’s political past, yet he has a good impression of him, because a relative of Rusu presented him as a good candidate for mayor of Găuzeni.

“The candidates for mayor were proposed by local organizations. The local organization of Găuzeni proposed the candidacy of Mr. Dionisie Rusu, but we did not study his past, who he was and what he did, because our goal is that the person who is running for mayor is known in the village, with authority, especially since the president of the organization of Găuzeni is a relative of his and she gave him a good characteristic, but what he was in the past I don’t know, I don’t know… And we did not have this goal, to study his past. He is young and in his youth, people make mistakes and change their views,” Popa said.

To PAS – through PLDM, PDM, ȘOR: “I had no contact with “ȘOR””

In the same interview conducted by ZdG, PAS President Igor Grosu said that “no, we don’t have any candidates from Șor”. However, public data shows that there is at least one PAS mayoral candidate who previously flirted with the “Șor” party, which has since been declared unconstitutional. Iurie Porcescu, the PAS candidate for the local elections of 5 November 2023 in Dumbravita commune, Sîngerei district, won the elections in 2011 on the PLDM lists. He was re-elected in 2015, supported by the same party. In 2019 he ran again, this time on the PDM side, managing to win his third mandate.

According to a statement published on the “Șor” party’s Facebook page in March 2020, Iurie Porcescu, along with some councillors, joined the party led by fugitive Ilan Șor. “The “Sor” political party is the only party capable of changing things in the Republic of Moldova,” the statement said, which included Iurie Porcescu’s signature. 

Source: Facebook ȘOR Party

We phoned Iurie Porcescu in an attempt to get an explanation of the compatibility of what he said in 2020 and his candidacy in this year’s local elections on behalf of PAS.

“I am surprised by these questions. I ran for the PDM in 2019, after two terms in which I was supported by the PLDM, but I had no contact with “Șor”. I was fed up with so many stupidities and got rid of all parties and so far I have not joined any of them. I didn’t like the frustrations of all the parties, each one was pulling at its own. I ran on the list of the Action and Solidarity Party, because it’s closer. I was, was and am pro-European”, said the PAS candidate for mayor of Dumbrăvița. “You want me to tell you that I received money? I told you, I was and am pro-European and I don’t see other parties… they all have hidden interests. I haven’t seen any hidden interests in PAS, but I have serious doubts about the rest,” Porcescu told us, when asked why he was running on the PAS list in the November 5 elections.

Source: Facebook ȘOR Party

Porcescu’s signature

Source: actelocale.gov.md

Porcescu: “If I stop drinking and smoking, I’m an angel”

Although the statement in which Porcescu would have expressed his intention to join the “ȘOR” party was published by several sources as early as 2020, shortly after it appeared on the Facebook page of the “ȘOR” party, Porcescu told us that he had not seen it and would not even know about it, even though he pointed out that it would be “star” these days, a sign that he knows about the avalanche of reactions on social media regarding his affiliation with the former “Șor” party. We sent him the document with his signature on it, and Porcescu also asked us about the money. “Didn’t they also give me money by any chance? I am not without sins, but I carry them on my back alone. If I stop drinking and smoking, I’m an angel”, the candidate for mayor of Dumbravita told us.

A day later, Porcescu sent us several models of statements in which he changed the name of the party, trying to show how easily documents can be falsified. Later, he also sent us a message with the following content – “Art. 191 Penal Code, forgery”. We asked him if he had lodged a complaint with the police, but he replied that “there’s no point in destroying his health, because the whole internet is full”. Iurie Porcescu’s signature in the declaration published by the “Shor” party and the one appearing in some documents signed by him as mayor, published on actelocale.gov.md, are similar.

Since Porcescu says that the declaration announcing that he had joined the “Shor” party is a forgery, we spoke to Vasile Cretu, one of the councillors who signed the declaration published by the party. He told us that he had not signed any declaration, but said that Porcescu had told him about his intentions to join the “Shor” Party.

“Declaration – I didn’t see anything, I didn’t sign anything, but the mayor told me that he wants to switch from one party to another – to Shor, that he will make the road, he will make the market, something he will do. I told him: “If he will, pass!”. But I didn’t sign anything, he didn’t give me any papers. I think it was about two years ago, I don’t remember,” Cretu says.

Gheorghe Ichim, chairman of the Sîngerei Territorial Organisation of PAS, claims that the discussions surrounding Iurie Porcescu’s relationship with the “Șor” party are meant to discredit PAS. “It is a false act. Mr Porcescu was never a member of the “ȘOR” party. This is a directed work against PAS. It’s a good, positive thing when people come to PAS and don’t go there. Mr. Porcescu was in PDM, but he never went to the protests and that’s why the commune suffered – they didn’t implement any projects,” said Ichim.

A PAS candidate protested with a turkey in his hand against PSRM and the ACUM Bloc in 2019. PAS Ialoveni OT president: “Let the voters forgive him for the deeds given”

Marcel Bobeica, another PAS mayoral candidate, has been mayor of Gangura village, Ialoveni district since 2015, when he won his first mandate, supported by PLDM. Four years later, he has again embarked on a campaign for a second term. But then he ran for the PDM.

In June 2019, Marcel Bobeica was one of the PDM members and sympathisers who participated with Vladimir Plahotniuc in the demonstration where five turkeys were thrown over the presidential fence, after the PSRM and the ACUM Bloc, made up of PAS and the DA Platform, signed an agreement to form a new parliamentary majority, which removed Plahotniuc from government.

Meanwhile, the Gangura town hall led by Bobeica obtained funding under the “European Village” programme, initiated by the PAS government, to implement the project “Elaboration of the General Urban Plan for Gangura commune, Ialoveni district”, and Bobeica ended up representing PAS in the November elections. Bobeica declined to comment on his change of political choice because “he is in an election campaign”.

Although several pictures of Bobeica holding a turkey have appeared in the public space, Petru Frunze, president of the Ialoveni Territorial Organisation of PAS, says he did not throw it over the presidential fence. “Bobeica did not throw turkeys, he was just present at the event. However, other people threw the turkeys, we were very attentive to that detail. Probably, he was holding a turkey, but he didn’t throw it, because that was the most unpleasant moment, when they made fun of the birds. If he was involved in throwing the turkey, we probably would have taken a totally different decision,” Frunze said.  “However, let the voters forgive him for his actions. But considering that he has a support from the respective community, it is already at the discretion of the voter,” the Ialoveni OT president pointed out.

PAS: “The process of identifying candidates respects the party’s statute”

“PAS does not have any mayoral candidate who was a member of the party declared unconstitutional. Regarding the other two candidates, the issue will be discussed at the PAS National Permanent Bureau and we will inform you about the decision. We would like to remind you that the PAS team has registered 702 candidates for mayor, 1158 candidates for district councillors and 9312 candidates for local councils. The process of identifying candidates complies with the party’s statute and involves the identification and proposal of candidates by local organisations and their approval by territorial organisations,” reads a PAS statement to ZdG, provided by Adriana Vlas, the party’s spokeswoman.

“PAS teams in villages and cities will work together with the government to secure funding for our towns and villages. Mayors will be able to talk more easily with state institutions,” it said by 16 October on the web page set up by PAS to present the party’s candidates for mayors and councillors. ZdG tried to find out whether PAS intended this text to convey the idea that mayors supported by the ruling party might have more advantages over mayors supported by other parties. However, the PAS spokeswoman said that this was “just a bad expression”. Shortly afterwards, the text was changed. 

“It was a bad wording and it has been changed on the website, but we are stressing the importance of mayors and councillors having the same views on European integration. Only if local and central public administration work together to attract European funds and to implement European projects at local level, Moldova’s accession to the EU will become a reality. And PAS – Team Europe is the team that has set itself this mission, which can only be achieved together with the Government, the Parliament and the whole society”, said PAS representative.

Source: echipaeuropa.md

Political analyst: “Maybe it has a magic wand that upon touching men, instantly turns them into decent people”

Contacted by ZdG, political analyst Igor Botan believes that PAS, by supporting candidates who were affiliated in the past with parties led by dubious people, becomes a party like all the others, and the “filters” that the party talked about when it launched on the political scene no longer work. 

“Probably the filters have broken down and this is a problem of PAS; another cause would be that those who committed the things you refer to have convinced those in PAS that they are already decent people, worthy of the trust of this party to represent it in the bodies of local power. By giving credit to such candidates, PAS either becomes a political party like all the others, consuming everything it is fed, or it has a magic wand that, upon touching a man or more, instantly turns them into decent people…”, said Botan.