(Adnkronos) – Evghenia Gutul, the pro-Russian leader of Gagauzia, an autonomous region of Moldova, has been sentenced to seven years in prison by a Chisinau court for illegal financing of tycoon Ilhan Shor’s party – now a refugee in Moscow – during the 2023 election campaign, when she was elected as ‘bashkan’ (governor) of the region, her lawyer, Natalia Bayram, told the Russian news agency Tass, specifying that her client was taken directly to prison from the courtroom. Gutsul had been nominated by the party of Shor, sentenced in absentia in Moldova to 15 years in prison for the embezzlement of one billion dollars from state coffers. “In Moldova, the opposition is subject to systematic repression and people do not have the opportunity to vote freely. The norms of democracy are ignored,” denounced Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
In Gagauzia, Russian is the main language, even in schools. 68.2 percent of Gagauzians – Orthodox Christians of Turkish descent – do not speak Romanian, the state language. But the region, unlike Transnistria, is integrated into the rest of the country (70 percent of the budget comes from public funding and 42 percent of exports from the region go to EU countries, mainly agricultural and alcoholic products, while only 8 percent goes to Russia, according to last year’s data.
Shortly after the July 2023 elections, Chisinau declared Shor’s party unconstitutional. President Maia Sandu had defined Gutul, who has positions contrary to the country’s accession to the EU, and has been hit by EU and US sanctions, as a member of a “criminal organization” and had refused to sign the decree for her admission to the government, as has always happened for the governors of the autonomous region. Gutul has been to Moscow several times, where she has also been photographed next to Vladimir Putin, and has signed an agreement with the defense sector bank, Promsvyazbank, for the distribution of a bonus of about 100 dollars to local government employees and pensioners, with the crediting on prepaid cards of the Mir circuit.
Parliamentary elections will be held next September 28 in Moldova, with the growing economic gap creating discontent and social tensions, particularly in rural areas of the country. Gagauzia, with its 150,000 inhabitants, less than 5 percent of Moldova’s population, will not affect the outcome of the vote. And in any case, the Gagauzians do not seem interested in a confrontation with Chisinau, which has long since established direct contacts with the local authorities, bypassing the governor.
The ruling pro-European Pas party seems to be heading for victory in the elections, although the unknown of Moscow’s ‘hybrid threat’ remains. The main opponent, however, is the Alternative Bloc led by Chisinau Mayor Ion Ceban and former prosecutor and presidential candidate Alexander Stoianoglo, who accuse the Pas of exploiting pro-Russian propaganda to silence the opposition.
