For the first time in the history of election campaigns in the Republic of Moldova, a major political contender, the Bloc of Communists and Socialists, has adopted a xenophobic message at the center of its campaign, which can be labeled as hate speech. However, the two parties are not the only ones employing this kind of rhetoric. Foreigners, the elderly, women and the LGBTQI community have also been targeted by hate speech in the current election campaign.
Election banners displayed in Chișinău by the Electoral Bloc of Communists and Socialists (BECS), led by former presidents Vladimir Voronin and Igor Dodon, show the following slogan: “Moldova is in danger. We won’t surrender our country to foreigners”. The message is bilingual, written with capital letters in Romanian and with red letters in Russian.
The Communists and Socialists in the Republic of Moldova are today employing propaganda strategies used ever since the 1920s and the 1930s in the Soviet Union, focusing on the “citadel under siege” myth, which continues to be used 100 years on in ex-Soviet space.
“The citadel under siege” is a myth related to Soviet perception about the outside world: citizens were told that enemies had the Soviet Union surrounded and were trying to undermine it from the inside as well. The Bolsheviks inherited these ideas from Tsarist Russia, which had been using xenophobia-charged propaganda against enemies from the outside (Germany, in WWI). Xenophobic and anti-Semitic rhetoric targeting Jews were also commonplace across the Soviet Union.
The Bolsheviks used the citadel-under-siege myth shortly after the “Great October Socialist Revolution” during the Civil War the followed.
Russian scholar Olga Velikanova from University of Toronto explains in her works that “conspiracy, suspicion, image of the enemy, the idea of imperialistic encirclement, secrecy – all these representations were based on or originated in fear”. Ordinary citizens fear authority, war and the apocalypse, while regimes fear their own citizens and foreign aggression.
All that is being used today by Russia and Putin’s regime and gets exported to ex-Soviet space, for pro-Russian politicians to exploit.
The best example in this respect is Vladimir Putin’ speech delivered after the annexation of Crimea in March, 2014.
“In short, we have every reason to assume that the infamous policy of containment, led in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, continues today. They [the West, e.n.] are constantly trying to sweep us into a corner because we have an independent position, because we maintain it and because we call things like they are and do not engage in hypocrisy. But there is a limit to everything”, Vladimir Putin said at the time.
The citadel under siege myth includes the idea of a fight between the defending good and the besieging evil, which is why it needs a foreign enemy as the besieger. It is exactly what Voronin’s Communists and Dodon’s Socialists are doing today by depicting Romanians, Europeans and the NATO military bloc as “the evil” Moldovans need to resist.
From the first day BECS was created, on May 14, Dodon wrote that “foreign elements, with the help of their political instruments in Chișinău, want to impose on our citizens a set of pseudo-values that are go against the traditional family, our Christian faith and our very nation”.
“Moreover, they seek to do away with the Moldovan identity, including by banning the Moldovan language. They seek to turn our country into a colony that should become a source of cheap labor, a territory that can be sold to foreigners, etc. In this context, the members of the Republican Council were unanimous in their resolution to unite patriotic political forces capable of winning the election and ensuring a professional, responsible and experienced governance, in the interest of the country’s citizens, not other external forces”, the Socialist leader also wrote.
As regards NATO, former president Vladimir Voronin, the other co-leader of BECS, lashed out racist and xenophobic accusations. “Is that what you really want, dear voters, when casting your votes for Parliament? Do you want them to vote for the elimination of Moldova’s neutrality? And that NATO soldiers should come over and you should bear their dark-skinned children? Is that what you want? And that Romanian gendarmes should follow in their wake?”, Voronin told said during a political talk show hosted by TVC 21 on May 14.
Two reports monitoring hate speech have been recently compiled by the Promo-LEX Association, which for a number of years has been observing this phenomenon in the Republic of Moldova. Association experts have identified 59 cases of hate speech over May 11 – June 7, of which 15 cases were generated by eight candidates enrolled in the race for winning a deputy seat in the new Parliament of the Republic of Moldova.
According to the report, messages of intolerance were targeted against various groups: politicians, women, the LGBTQI minority, people with disabilities, Roma, men, immigrants, etc. The authors of the two monitoring reports also write that 29 of these cases were reported in social media.
For instance, the authors say over May 11-24 alone, the leader of Our Party and the Mayor of Bălți, Renato Usatyi, used chauvinistic expressions in five instances. Of these, three cases were negative associations with members of the LGBTQI community aimed at badmouthing his candidates, Igor Dodon and Vladimir Voronin.
More to this point, the unionist leader of the National Unity Party (PUN), Octavian Țîcu, said, in turn, during the show “The Secrets of Power” broadcast by Jurnal TV on May 19, “in my opinion, the Socialists and Communists’ last resort is to bring a senile old man in Parliament, who might kick the bucket any minute, and turn him into the savior of the left-wing in the current context”, a phrasing which the report denounces as “age discriminatory”.
Another example is that of Socialists deputies Vasile Bolea and Vladimir Odnostalco, who on May 13 organized a press briefing where they called for the modification of the Constitutions so as to ban same-sex marriages and stipulate that a child’s parents are a man – the father – and a woman – the mother.
“Since the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, under Article 48, paragraph (2), clearly stipulates the definition of the family, deputy Vasile Bolea’s statements have created a false notion, which inadvertently has promoted the discrimination of LGBTQI persons […] The Inclusion and Non-Discrimination Coalition and other NGOs have published a reaction, whereby they labeled the statements as an act of “electoral advertising”, aimed at hijacking election debates ahead of the election, focusing them on fake news and inventing imaginary threats”, the report also states.
Promo-Lex hate speech expert Irina Corobcenco told Veridica.ro that, with regard to left-wing parties, a key role in the promotion of hate speech is played by the media they control, which promote this kind of rhetoric more frequently compared to their opponents in the election. Overall, one notes a general surge of this kind of speech on the Internet, Irina Corobcenco went on to say.
“Both parties that made up this electoral bloc [BECS] have adopted a common discourse and rhetoric. The campaign kicked off with this xenophobic message that was published, posted and spread via street banners – “Moldova is in danger and we won’t surrender our country to foreigners”. It was a message that was actually followed by a string of homophobic, xenophobic or hate speech outbursts from the candidates of the two parties. The difference is that, right now, what BECS is doing with this kind of electoral message is make it more visible. They reiterate it in every TV appearance, interview and on every media outlet that supports the campaign of this electoral bloc. Every day, they repeat the same message, hoping it is perceived as a real threat, and not a political ruse”, Corobcenco said.
In turn, political expert Mihai Isac said the political elites in Chișinău are using geopolitics to serve their own interests, namely to mask corruption including by means of hate speech.
“A number of political actors continue to depict NATO as the boogeyman and speak of the LGBTQI threat or of uniting with Romania in order to divert public attention from the real problems in Moldova. All parties work with a geopolitical agenda. And here we’re talking about the neutrality promoted by Shor Party, BECS, Our Party and other left-wing parties. On this side of the political spectrum, it’s easy to notice the influence of Russia, which is using every tool at its disposal to fight NATO enlargement. The Republic of Moldova remains a testing ground for Russia’s hybrid war”, Mihai Isac concluded.
Disinformation uses a variety of manipulation tactics. Disinformation stories can easily be created by combining provocative topics.
Report
Not even the most optimistic supporters of the Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) were expecting a landslide victory in the early parliamentary election. PAS didn’t just face left-wing parties, represented by the Electoral Bloc of Communists and Socialists, but Russia itself, which tried to lend the latter a helping hand. Yet its victory is only the beginning: the real challenge for PAS lies ahead.
FAKE NEWS: The right-wing bought votes in the Diaspora
The alleged election fraud, including bribe-giving, was one of the hot topics in the Republic of Moldova on election day. While media outlets siding with pro-European parties revealed alleged cases of bribe reported on the left bank of the Dniester, the pro-Socialist press focused on offenses reported abroad. One the main “arguments” about influencing voters in the Diaspora was a short video filmed by a young girl queuing outside a polling station in Frankfurt, Germany. In the background one can hear a few people talking and laughing, mentioning 50 Euro. A large number of press institutions affiliated to the Socialists carried the piece of news, suggesting the video is evidence that voters got bribed. The person who shot the video subsequently said it was all a joke, and that the media made erroneous assumptions.
DEMAGOG 2021. The Chisinau Report, No. 5: Radio Yerevan
disinformation, manipulative stories and fake news continued to flood the media as usual. Maia Sandu, PAS and the West were again the favorite targets of disinformation and fake narratives. Fake news authors were pretty much unimaginative, as they have been over the course of the entire campaign, resorting to narratives they used before, both in the current campaign, as well as in previous ones: a victory for the right-wing would spell disaster for the country
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