Expect serious outbreaks of soreloserism from Russia and its fellow travellers in the Patriotic Bloc in the aftermath of the election. Its leader, Igor Dodon, claimed victory before even a significant proportion of the votes had been counted and is currently stage-managing a demonstration "to protect the victory" outside the electoral commission's offices, with more likely to follow tomorrow outside the Moldovian parliament.
On Twitter (and no doubt other social media) certain accounts have been circulating a laughably fake video showing an alleged election official sat at a desk, stuffing vote forms for the opposition parties into a metal waste can prior to burning them, calling those voters "idiots" and bemoaning how few votes there are for PAS.
We're supposed to believe that not only is an election official handling bundles of completed voting forms illicitly in a secluded room, but also videoing what he's doing and publishing it widely.
Most of the English-language versions have suspiciously similar wording, usually unsubtle variations on:
Democracy, Maia Sandu style: during the elections in Moldova, a supporter of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) is seen burning ballots cast for the opposition — the Patriotic Bloc and the Alternative — leaving only the votes for the ruling party.
In the video, allegedly filmed by a member of the Central Election Commission, he angrily throws stacks of ballots into the trash, calls the voters “idiots,” and then sets the ballots on fire. At the same time, he shows a thin stack of votes for PAS and laments how few people supported the ruling party.
Yet another confirmation of how the so-called “pro-European” forces actually operate in Moldova.
(One reply claimed that the video was actually showing the destruction of fraudulently produced prefilled voting forms that had been discovered, but that doesn't seem credible since it would constitute destroying evidence.)
Elsewhere in Europe, there have been numerous reports of bomb scares at Moldovian expatriate polling stations in a desperate attempt to suppress the predominantly pro-EU vote.
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