Ilan Shor

Opposition parties critical of President Maia Sandu's pro-European stance have joined forces in Moscow, forming a pre-election bloc with ambitions to contest upcoming presidential elections and a pivotal referendum on EU membership.

In a dramatic turn of events, Moldova has found itself in the throes of political upheaval just hours before local elections, as authorities banned the pro-Russian "Chance" party over concerns related to national security. The decision casts a shadow of uncertainty over Sunday's elections and threatens to disrupt the political landscape of the country.

Fugitive and convicted Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor announced on Monday the creation of a new political bloc to replace the Shor Party he previously led but which was recently declared unconstitutional by Moldova's Constitutional Court judges and outlawed.

The new governor of the pro-Russian autonomous region of Gagauzia, Evghenia Gutul, publicly thanked her supporters on Tuesday after the Court of Appeal in the region's main city Comrat decided the previous evening to validate the results of the May 14 elections for the position of bashkan (governor).

Officers of Moldova's National Anticorruption Centre, CNA, on Tuesday evening raided the offices of the Central Electoral Commission in Gagauzia, collecting lists of voters for the election of a new governor held in the autonomous southern region.

The CNA said it found names in the lists of some citizens settled outside the country and of some dead people.

Local elections in Moldova's pro-Russian autonomous region of Gagauzia were won on Sunday by the Ilan Shor Party's candidate, Evghenia Gutul, according to results published by the Electoral Commission in Comrat, the central administrative city in the region.

The Chisinau Court of Appeal sentenced fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor to 15 years in prison in absentia for his key role in the so-called "Grand Theft" of one billion US dollars from Moldovan banking between 2012 and 2014.

The Central Electoral Commission in Moldova, CEC, has sanctioned the Ilan Shor Party, depriving it of the right to receive allocations from the state budget for the first six months of this year.

Moldova has won a lawsuit filed at the Arbitration Court of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce by the offshore company from Cyprus that manages Chisinau International Airport, Komaksavia Airport Invest Ltd.

The director of Moldova's National Anti-Corruption Centre, Iulian Rusu, announced on Monday evening the seizure of oligarch Ilan Shor's assets in the country.

"The seizures applied by the Criminal Assets Recovery Agency reached the amount of 1.5 billion lei [about 75 million euros]. These are properties from Moldova," Rusu told TV8.