Pro-EU party wins Moldova election amid accusations of fraud and foreign interference

The pro-European Union (EU) Action and Solidarity Party (PAS), led by President Maia Sandu, emerged victorious in the parliamentary elections held on Sunday in Moldova.

Despite losing some seats, the party managed to maintain its absolute majority in parliament.

The election results were accompanied by accusations of fraud and calls for protest from the pro-Russian opposition.

President Sandu’s party retains majority

According to the initial results announced by the Central Election Commission, 99.6% of the votes have been counted. Sandu’s party, PAS, received over 50% of the vote, securing at least 54 seats in the 101-seat parliament.

Although this result represents a decrease from the party’s previous 61 seats, it allows them to retain the authority to form a government alone.

Another pro-European group, the Alternative Bloc, also entered parliament by winning 7.99% of the vote, which translates to 8 deputies. The voter turnout was 52%.

The election was marked by mutual allegations of irregularities and foreign interference. In a statement one day before the election, President Sandu claimed that 100 million euros were spent to influence the results and mentioned the possibility of the elections being annulled.

Following the announcement of the results, accusations came from the opposition. The pro-Russian Patriots Bloc, led by former President Igor Dodon, won 27 seats with 24.25% of the vote.

Dodon accused the Central Election Commission of fraud and called on opposition parties to hold a protest rally in front of the parliament building in Chisinau on Tuesday.

The other parties that managed to enter parliament were Our Party with 6.21% of the vote and Democracy at Home with 5.63%. Both parties will be represented by 8 deputies each in parliament.

Sandu: Elections could be annulled

Meanwhile, President Maia Sandu alleged that 100 million euros were spent to interfere in the elections and stated that the results could be annulled due to possible foreign interference.

Sandu had previously accused Russia of trying to influence the elections by spreading propaganda through clergy and a bot network called “Matryoshka.”

Parallel to Sandu’s claims, a noteworthy statement came from Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram. Durov announced that Moldovan intelligence had twice asked him to censor certain Telegram channels before the presidential elections.

Durov stated that he complied with the first request but rejected the second because he found no objectionable content on the channels.

Separately, the court of appeals upheld the disqualification of the Great Moldova party, which ran under the Patriots Bloc coalition. The party faced accusations of illegal financing and bribing voters.

This decision followed another disqualification just two days before the election. The Central Election Commission barred the opposition Heart of Moldova party from the elections for failing to comply with the gender quota on its candidate list.

The party’s activities had already been suspended by the Chisinau court of appeals at the request of the Ministry of Justice.

The Gagauzia and Transnistria factor

Another significant element in the election was the autonomous regions. Yevgenia Gutsul, the head of the autonomous region of Gagauzia, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in August, released a message through her lawyers on election day. Gutsul called on Moldovan citizens to go to the polls and vote against “slavery imposed by foreign interference.”

Voting for electors in the Transnistria region was effectively made more difficult. Andrey Safonov, a member of the Transnistrian parliament, reported that only 12 polling stations were set up for hundreds of thousands of voters holding Moldovan passports, and just over 20,000 ballots were printed.

Safonov drew attention to the situation by comparing this figure to the nearly 1 million ballots printed for voters in the European Union and North America.