Top Moldovan election officer says polling officials accused of corruption, to be replaced

CHISINAU, Moldova (Reuters) -Poll officials accused of corruption in the first round of Moldova’s presidential election have been removed ahead of Sunday’s run-off in which pro-European incumbent Maia Sandu is seeking a second term, the top election official said on Friday.

Sandu, who spearheads Moldova’s drive to join the European Union, scored 42% in the opening round to 26% for challenger Alexandr Stoianoglo, who is backed by a party with traditional links to Russia.

The president alleged that the first round was subject to a mass bribery campaign to persuade up to 300,000 voters to cast ballots against her and a referendum on joining the EU which passed by a razor-thin margin.

“Some members of election commissions, including chairpersons, secretaries and clerks are included in documents put together by police and prosecutors,” commission head Angela Caraman said in a statement at a meeting of her commission. “Some of them have already been removed from electoral bodies.”

Both the election and the referendum were tainted by allegations of meddling, with authorities accusing pro-Russian fugitive businessman Ilan Shor of paying off voters in the country located between Ukraine and EU member Romania.

A defeat for Sandu could allow Moscow to win more influence in a diplomatic battleground between Russia and the EU.

The run-off takes place a little more than a week after a parliamentary election in Georgia, another ex-Soviet country trying to join the EU, where a ruling party seen by many in the West as increasingly pro-Russian claimed victory.

With campaigning in the Moldova poll drawing to a close, Prime Minister Dorin Recean said voters had been subjected to an “unprecedented attack” through a wave of anonymous telephone calls with threats to kill them.

“These threats were received by journalists, well-known personalities and ordinary citizens,” Recean told TV8.

“These threats of intimidation have a single purpose – to sow panic and fear so that people will be afraid to vote.”

Sandu has singled out Russia and corruption as the two biggest threats facing Moldova.

Stoianoglo, sacked by Sandu as prosecutor general on grounds he failed to act against corruption, has pledged, if elected, to back EU integration as well as develop ties with Russia in the national interest.

He criticised an EU aid package and Western leaders visiting Chisinau ahead of the Oct. 20 vote as pro-Sandu interference.

The Kremlin said on Friday that Russia was monitoring the ongoing presidential election in Moldova, but was not interfering in it despite a flurry of allegations from the West and Moldovan officials to the contrary.

Business magnate Shor, convicted last year in absentia of mass fraud, is now based in Russia. He denies any meddling while acknowledging he openly offered money to people who persuaded Moldovans to vote “no” at the referendum and to oppose Sandu.

(Reporting by Alexander Tanas in Chisinau; Editing by Ron Popeski, Leslie Adler and Matthew Lewis)