Moldova's pro-Western President Maya Sandu won the contested election race, defeating her rival Alexander Stojanoglu of the traditionally pro-Russian Socialist Party, the agencies noted.
With 100% of the sectional protocols processed, she wins against her opponent with 55.33% to 44.67% of the vote.
The victory for Sandu, 52, who is a former World Bank consultant and has given new impetus to her country's efforts to replace Moscow's orbit with EU membership, was seen by her supporters as a clear mandate to support a hardline pro-Western course , notes Reuters.
But Stojanoglo's dominance in large parts of Moldova suggests that Sandu's party will face no easy task in the race for next year's parliamentary elections, which will determine the new face of the government in Chisinau.
Stoyanoglo bet on a pre-election message in support of European integration, but combined with a desire to maintain ties with Russia while guaranteeing national interests. Sandu described Stojanoglo as a Kremlin Trojan horse, something the Socialist candidate denied.
„Moldova, you won! Nobody loses from our choice of a dignified future”, said the re-elected Moldovan president in his victory speech after the elections, which made an impression with its conciliatory tone – especially with Sandu's statement that she would calm the anxieties of those who voted against her.
„I heard your voice – both to those who supported me and to those who voted for Mr. Stoyanoglo. I commit to be the president of all of you.“
The pro-Russian socialists issued a statement disputing the election results and the legitimacy of Sandu as president, notes France Press.
„Maya Sandu is an illegitimate president, recognized only by his sponsors and supporters abroad. The Moldovan people feel betrayed and robbed”, the party pointed out and accused the rulers of “obstructing” of voters to vote and other violations of the vote, which Sandu eventually won thanks to the decisive support of the large Moldovan diaspora abroad, which voted en bloc for her.
The future of Moldova, a poor agrarian country that has vacillated between the Western and Russian orbits since the collapse of the USSR in 1991, has come under the spotlight following Russia's full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in 2022, Reuters notes.< /p>
Moldova was flooded by a huge wave of refugees from Ukraine, and after the covid pandemic, its economy suffered another severe blow due to the geopolitical crisis surrounding the Ukrainian conflict, which resulted in Russian gas supplies being drastically reduced, and this caused high inflation.
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The election attracted very serious attention in the West, as it was produced a week after the vote in another former Soviet republic of Georgia, where the rulers also won, but there, unlike in Moldova, the ruling party “Georgian Dream“ is accused of a growing pro-Russian bias.
„We congratulate the Moldovan authorities for successfully holding the elections despite unprecedented Russian interference, including vote-buying schemes and disinformation,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and the European Commission said in a joint statement.
French President Emmanuel Macron described the outcome of the election race as a “triumph of democracy”, as both he and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed their support for the country's European path. Britain has pledged to continue democratic reforms in Moldova, and US President Joe Biden has said Moscow has failed in its attempts to undermine Moldova's electoral process.
The election was marked by the highest voter turnout of the Moldovan diaspora since 2010, when it gained the right to vote.
Within Moldova, Sandu actually lost to Stojanoglo by a small margin of 48.67% against 51.3%. On the other hand, in the votes counted so far in the vote of Moldovans abroad, she won it categorically with nearly 80%.
„The increased voter turnout of the diaspora has paid off. It changed the balance of power”, said Ukrainian political analyst and expert on Moldova Ruslan Rohov.
ALLEGATIONS OF ELECTION INTERFERENCE
On Sunday, Sandu's national security adviser, Stanislav Sekrieru, accused Russia of a major intervention to influence the outcome of the election, and as the direct executor of this operation, the oligarch Ilan Shor, who is hiding from Moldovan justice in Russia, was again named as the direct executor of this operation, who denies that he was doing something wrong.
„We are witnessing large-scale interference by Russia in the electoral process with the potential to distort the results of the vote”, Sekrieru wrote on the “X“ social network.
Moscow rejects all accusations of electoral interference.
Sekrieru referred to evidence of escorting voters to polling stations, cyber attacks and fake bomb threats against polling stations abroad.
Police announced that they had launched an operation to stamp out any possibility of a repeat of a vote-buying scheme they believe was organized by Shore in the first round of the election, which coincided with a referendum on EU membership.
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IS THE EUROPEAN FUTURE OF MOLDOVA AT RISK
Cristian Kantir, a Moldovan associate professor of international relations at Auckland University, told The Associated Press that the second round would not “reduce geopolitical tensions” around Moldova, regardless of the outcome of the runoff. “On the contrary, I expect the geopolitical polarization to deepen given next year's upcoming parliamentary elections.“
Moldova has been ruled by a pro-Western government since 2021. According to people familiar with Moldova, next year's parliamentary elections could be Moscow's next major target for the former Soviet republic, according to the Associated Press.
Immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Chisinau applied for EU membership. In June of the same year, Moldova received the status of a candidate country, and in the summer of 2024, Brussels officially began accession negotiations with Chisinau. The sharp pro-Western turn seriously irritated Russia and significantly worsened relations along the Chisinau axis – Moscow, adds the Associated Press.