A resident of Moldova’s Edineț district and mother of four says she neither participated in the elections nor installed any Russian banking applications on her phone, yet she was fined 25,000 lei for alleged passive electoral corruption.
According to the woman, the violation report was drawn up without her participation. She claims that police neither inspected her phone nor questioned her before issuing the penalty.
“We appealed in Bălți. We hoped the court there would take the circumstances into account. There should be some way to verify that I did not participate in the elections,” she said in an interview with Channel Five.
Her husband earns 6,000 lei per month, and the family is now required to pay 5,000 lei monthly to court enforcement officers to cover the fine. The woman also stated that her grandmother received a similar penalty.
Both the court of first instance in Edineț and the appellate court in Bălți rejected their appeals despite arguments concerning procedural violations and an alleged lack of evidence.
Last week, during the “Money in Politics” conference, Igor Grosu, leader of the ruling PAS party, stated that “no citizen should be intimidated.” He also emphasized the importance of preventive measures, arguing that restoring public trust after violations occur is far more difficult.
Despite these assurances, official figures from early autumn 2025 indicated that more than 30,000 reports related to passive electoral corruption had been issued, while over 18 million lei in fines had already been collected by the state budget.
