Moldova: Presidential Election Moves to Second Round
Referendum on European Union membership: the “yes” wins, but by a margin of only 15,000 votes. 354,000 Moldovan citizens living in Russia were virtually excluded from voting
In the presidential election in Moldova, one of the 15 Soviet republics, after counting almost 100% of ballots, the incumbent head of state Maia Sandu wins with about 41.8% of the vote, which is not enough to be elected in the first round, and therefore there will be a second round on November 3. Sandu is clearly distancing herself from her main rival, Socialist Party of Moldova presidential candidate Alexandru Stoianoglo, for whom 26.4% of voters who went to the polls on Sunday cast their ballots. The turnout for the elections caused a scandal: of the 2.7 million eligible voters in Moldova and abroad, just over 51% voted, and there are those who claim that the Central Election Commission “inflated” the data to be able to declare the elections “legitimate.”
Next are Renato Usatii, representative of the Our Party formation, with 13.34% of the vote, and Irina Vlah, independent candidate and former “bashkan,” or governor of the autonomous region of Gagauzia, with 5.45% of votes.
In addition to the turnout, another scandal that caused Sandu’s hysterical reaction was the results of voting in the national referendum on Moldova’s accession to the European Union, as a strategic “goal” of this small republic “crushed” between Ukraine and Romania. In a consultative referendum, citizens were asked to decide whether to include in the text of the Constitution “a reference to European Union membership as an irreversible goal for Moldova’s future.”
And the “yes” seemed to win by a margin of only 15,000 votes, which comes from Moldovan “guest workers” living in Europe. In percentage terms, 50.03% of voters were in favor of joining the EU by 2030, while 49.97% voted against.
Although outgoing President Maia Sandu accused “criminal groups together with foreign forces of interfering in the freedom of voting in Moldova,” the Moldovan press writes that “354,000 Moldovan citizens living in Russia” were excluded, where only two (!) polling stations were opened, where less than 10,000 eligible voters were able to vote. News reports inform about very long queues in front of the Moldovan Embassy in the historical center of Moscow, where voters had to wait for 5-6 hours to get to the polling stations.
