In the parliamentary elections in Moldova, the ruling pro-European Action and Solidarity Party of President Maia Sandu is leading the results with over 99% of ballots counted. It won 49.91% of the votes. This equates to at least 53 of the 101 seats in parliament. The pro-Russian Patriotic Bloc of former head of state Igor Dodon received 24.33% of the votes, the Central Election Commission reported on its website. These elections were seen as decisive for the direction in which Moldova will develop in the future - whether it will follow the path towards Europe or towards Russia.
Moldova is a candidate for EU membership from 2022
With its 2.4 million inhabitants, Moldova is a candidate for EU membership from 2022. Pro-Western President Maia Sandu was hoping for a majority of pro-European forces in these elections to continue reforms for EU accession. Now this will be possible.
Before the vote, Sandu accused Russia of massive influence on the election campaign. Moldovan authorities spoke of Russian interference with vote buying, disinformation on social networks and cyberattacks. The non-governmental organization Promo-Lex, which monitored the elections on Sunday, September 28, reported that there were more than 250 confirmed cases of influence attempts, Deutschlandfunk writes.
Voter turnout - higher than in 2021
Surprisingly, not four, as expected, but five political forces entered the Moldovan parliament. The "Alternative" bloc, which calls itself pro-European but consists of politicians with a pro-Russian past, received 8%. The scandalous "Our Party" of Renato Usatogo also entered parliament with a result of 6.2%, and "Democracy at Home" of Vasily Kostyuk, who built his campaign with TikTok videos, unexpectedly collected the necessary 5.6%.
The voter turnout in Moldova was over 52 percent, which is higher than in 2021 (48 percent). However, the result of the vote depends primarily on the vote of the diaspora abroad, writes the German public television ARD, pointing out that hundreds of thousands of Moldovans live in the EU and traditionally have a great influence on who governs in their homeland.
In these elections, considered one of the most important in the country's modern history, "Moldova defeated Russia", commented Chisinau political scientist Vitaly Andrievski. And political analyst Victor Ciobanu assesses what is happening in the country as follows: "Moldova has returned to the usual paradigm of geopolitical confrontation". In 2020 and 2021, the country was focused on the domestic agenda, when the unification of society was at the forefront in the elections, he says.
In essence, with the results of the vote, Moldova repeated last year's referendum on joining the EU, adds Victor Ciobanu. According to him, the results show that the country is divided: the North and the South will vote differently from the pro-European Center for a long time, the analyst says.
Author: Alexander Burakov