The seats closed at 21 rooms, with files of voters still waiting in front of the polls. Then the evening bare delivered its verdict: the Moldova takes the European street, distancing – for the second time in a year – from the orbit of Moscow. After a long run -up of fluctuating percentages, the action and solidarity party of President Maia Sandu almost completed, the Filorusso patriotic patriotic block led by the former head of state Igor Dodon, collecting 44% of the preferences against 28%.
To further strengthen the victory from the Pas, the votes of the diaspora still to be counted could be: almost a fifth of the electorate, who already in 2024 delivered to the Europeanists the victory in the referendum on adhesion to the Union thanks to just 13 thousand gap votes.
The feverish wait that accompanied the day finally melted in the relief of Brussels, aware that there was not only the future of the small town set between Ukraine and Romania at stake, but also a crucial piece of the safety of her oriental side.
Among false alarms bomb at home and in seats abroad, cyberattacchi attributed to Moscow, suspicious movements of voters and a pro-Cremlin intervention of the CEO of Telegram Pavel Durov even relaunched by Elon Musk, the day was consumed in an electric atmosphere, culminated in a final turnout at 51.9%, the highest ever recorded for the renewal of the 101 parliamentary seats. From Chisinau’s Petru Raps high school, Sandu launched a last appeal to civic responsibility: «I voted to preserve the peace and the European future of Moldova.
Today it was time to demonstrate love for our country. Tomorrow it could be too late, “urged the former World Bank official elected in 2020 on the wave of anti -corruption sentiment and reconfirmed last year, reminding citizens to be able to decide” the fate of a small nation but with worthy people, who do not sell the homeland or for 400 she for 400 euros “, and denouncing once again the interference of the Kremlin.
Suspected interferences ended up in the police radar especially in the 12 special seats reserved for the voters of Transnistria -the pro -Russian separatist region east of the Dniester, where Moscow is still 1,500 soldiers after the short war of the 90s -, open in the capital, in the border cities and in different villages of the so -called “security area”. Precisely on the border, the Independent-Lex Observers have reported the mass arrival of at least seventy people aboard eighteen cars with Transnistrian plates.
A little later, a group of ten individuals who came down from two vehicles discussed who to vote following the indications of a Telegram channel on their smartphones. Similar episodes have also been recorded in autonomous Gaugia. And in Russian territory where, alongside long seats, the Moldovan police denounced convoys of buses organized by Moscow to transfer voters with Moldovan passport to Belarus.
A practice prohibited by law, but that – according to analysts – the Kremlin would use by transforming Minsk into a frank zone to impose close surveillance. Not a novelty: already in 2024 some journalistic investigations had revealed how Russia orchestrasse real travels with Charter and bus flights to Azerbaijan, Belarus and Turkey, in an attempt to strengthen the then pro-Russian candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo, then defeated by Sandu. A witch hunt, in the opposite narrative of the pro-Russian leader Dodon aligned with that of the Kremlin that has liquidated the manipulation shadows as “hysteria”.
“Today political power trembles in front of the people,” the former Moldovan president has thundered, accusing Sandu of wanting to “cancel the votes”. And by going already to convene – as still open – for tomorrow at noon a “peaceful protest in front of Parliament”.