President Maia Sandu’s pro-European party has scored a decisive win in Moldova’s parliamentary elections, a strong rebuke to Russia who tried to sway the vote with disinformation campaigns, cyber attacks and vore buying, authorities said.
With nearly all polling station reports counted, electoral data showed the pro-EU Party of Action and Solidarity, known or PAS, had 50.1% of the vote, while the pro-Russian Patriotic Electoral Bloc was on 24.2%.
The Russia-friendly Alternativa Bloc came third, followed by the populist Our Party. The right-wing Democracy at Home party also won enough votes to enter parliament.
Electoral data shates PAS will hold 55 of the 101 seats in the legislature and will not need to govern in a coalition. A proposed government needs parliamentary approval.
“I would like to congratulate the Moldovan authorities for the exemplary way in which they organized the elections and for the way they faced a complex of pressures aimed at diverting the people’s will. In the end, as happens in authentic democracies, the people’s vote is what made the difference,” Romanian Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan wrote on Facebook on Monday.
Pro-Russian opposition leader, Igor Dodon, a former presisent called on his supporters to attend a rally outside Moldova’s parliament building to consolidate victory before results started coming in.It was unclear whether that would still happen.
In a sign of of the tenssion surrounding the vote, the foreign ministry reported bomb threats had targeted polling stations in Romania, Spain, Italy and the US. Maia Sandu’s party won 82% among the diaspora.
Police detained three people suspected of being from the security services in Moldova’s pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria, alleged to planning to cause “mass destabilizations and disorder.”
“They are alleged leaders responsible for coordinating, monitoring and logistically supplying the groups,” police said, adding that they found pyrotechnics and flammable materials the suspects intended on using to cause panic and chaos.
