President Maja Sandu's pro-European party won a landslide victory in Moldova's parliamentary elections on Sunday, confirming the western path of the former Soviet republic of 2,4 million people.
"This is not just a victory for one party, this is a victory for Moldova. The European path is our way forward," Sandu said.
The ruling Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) won 50,2 percent of the vote, compared to 24,2 percent for the pro-Russian Patriotic Bloc. The landslide victory came despite widespread reports of Russian interference and a series of shocks that, according to The Guardian, could have toppled any incumbent government.
This is a better result than Moldova's Western allies dared to hope for.
"The people of Moldova... have chosen democracy, reforms and a European future, despite pressure and Russian interference," said European Council President Antonio Costa.
The leaders of France, Germany and Poland, in a joint statement, congratulated Moldova on "the peaceful conduct of the elections, despite unprecedented Russian interference, including vote-buying schemes and disinformation."
However, Moscow, which denies allegations of interference, accused Moldovan authorities of preventing hundreds of thousands of its citizens living in Russia from voting, providing only two polling stations for the large diaspora.
Igor Dodon, co-chairman of the Patriotic Bloc and former president of Moldova, said his party had submitted documents to the Central Election Commission proving voting irregularities, Reuters reported.
"PAS clings to power through the votes of the diaspora," said Dodon, referring to the large number of Moldovans living and working in Europe, while about a hundred opposition supporters protested in front of parliament.
Since the last parliamentary elections in 2021, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has led to the settlement of 135.000 people in Moldova, the largest number of Ukrainian refugees per capita in the world, and a surge in energy prices that has caused inflation to skyrocket to 34 percent. The Patriotic Bloc and other opposition groups have sought to capitalize on voters’ discontent with economic hardship and the slow pace of reforms. Inflation remains high, at around seven percent, while Moldovans are also bearing the brunt of the cost of imported energy.
Anastasia Pociumban of the German Council on Foreign Relations said that PAS now faces a huge challenge to "bridge the divide" in the country and better explain the benefits of EU accession to more skeptical Moldovans.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which sent an observation mission to Moldova, said the elections were competitive despite shortcomings.
The elections demonstrated “a high level of commitment to democracy despite unprecedented hybrid threats coming from Russia,” said Paula Cardoso, OSCE mission coordinator.
However, Cardoso pointed out that the authorities' decision to ban the two parties from participating a few days before the election “limited their right to seek an effective remedy.” The parties were excluded due to allegations of illegal financing.
PAS now faces a huge challenge to bridge the country's divisions and better explain the benefits of EU accession to more skeptical Moldovans.
Sandu, a former World Bank official who was re-elected as president in 2024, wants Moldova to become a member of the EU by 2030. The Guardian writes that with a secure parliamentary majority, rather than the divided coalition that many pollsters predicted, it should be easier to implement the demanding political and economic reforms needed to join the Union.
The British newspaper points out that this is an equally important result for the EU, which has invested political capital in Moldova. The European Commission has pledged 1,9 billion euros in grants and soft loans to build infrastructure, such as roads, hospitals and internet cables, to boost the economy and speed up Moldova's integration into the European single market.
However, the sighs of relief are accompanied by the awareness that this is just one chapter in a long story, the analysis says. “The fight is not over,” said former Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita at a security conference in Warsaw yesterday. “Of course, we are very determined to implement reforms despite all the challenges, limited capacities and everything else,” she said.
Clara Volintiru, head of the German Marshall Fund office in Bucharest, said it was clear that voter mobilization in favor of the pro-Russian Patriotic Bloc was not massive. But that, she warned, did not mean that Russia’s “tactics of manipulation and interference” had failed, as Russian interference was aimed at the entire election cycle, not just Sunday’s vote.
"The goal of Russian interference is to increase social distrust, to diminish the trust that Moldovan citizens have not only in their government and president, but also in their European future," she assessed.
Ahead of the vote, Moldovan authorities accused Russia of spending hundreds of millions of euros in an attempt to overturn the results. Dozens of men were arrested on suspicion of traveling to Serbia for training to break through police cordons and resist security forces. Meanwhile, a Reuters investigation found that Orthodox priests in the deeply religious country were taking trips to Russia at the expense of their hosts and receiving up to 1.200 euros - more than double the average monthly salary - in exchange for promoting anti-Western narratives.
Volintiru said Moldova is a “laboratory” where Russia is testing “a wide range of tools and tactics” that could be applied in other European democracies. The analyst cited unpublished research by the Moldovan government’s StratCom Center, which she had access to, which showed that 70 percent of the population feels an increased level of concern.
"There is widespread concern and fear in society. And that is the ultimate goal of Russian interference, not just to promote one political option or another, but to question or cast doubt on the entire democratic process."
In such circumstances, Moldova is persisting with its ambitious goal of becoming an EU member by 2030, writes the Guardian, noting that this is a high bar. Over the past 18 years, the EU has admitted only one country, Croatia, amid widespread distrust of the enlargement process in Western Europe, especially in France, Denmark and the Netherlands, the analysis adds.
According to Košta's proposal, the opening and closing of negotiations would still require the consent of all EU members, but negotiating clusters could be opened with the consent of a qualified majority.
Many politicians claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed everything. French European Affairs Minister Benjamin Haddad told the Warsaw Security Forum yesterday that after “some skepticism about enlargement in France … there has been a turnaround in recent years,” as people realize that expanding the bloc’s influence further into Ukraine, Moldova, and the Western Balkans is “a geopolitical necessity that will export security and stability to Europe” and represent an economic opportunity.
However, this does not mean that the path is clear, the Guardian reports, recalling that Moldova's EU membership negotiations have stalled because the Hungarian government refuses to open substantive negotiations with Ukraine. Ukraine's and Moldova's EU membership candidacies are informally linked, meaning that a single objection could block both.
European Council President Košta, who chairs EU summits, is trying to solve the problem by abolishing the requirement that every step in the negotiation process must be adopted unanimously.
Major milestones, such as opening and closing negotiations, would still require the consent of all member states, but negotiating clusters could be opened with the consent of a qualified majority of EU members. Košta hopes this will maintain momentum for Moldova, Ukraine and the Western Balkan countries aspiring to become EU members.
Volintiru believes that enlargement has become a matter of political will, not just a bureaucratic process. "Geopolitical pressures are strong and I think Brussels understands very well the seriousness of the situation."
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