Maya Sandu Photo: Daniel Mihailescu/ AFP
Moldova’s incumbent President Maia Sandu and former Prosecutor General Alexandru Stoianoglo will face off in the second round of the presidential election on 3 November. According to the preliminary results released by the country’s Central Election Commission on 21 October, Sandu won 41.98% of the vote, while her rival Stoianoglo received 26.31%.
This data is based on the processing of 98.38% of the voting protocols, covering more than 1.5 million votes. This result requires a second round to determine the winner.
Maia Sandu issued a statement at her campaign headquarters expressing concern about the integrity of the electoral process. She stated that there was massive vote buying during the elections and referendum.
“We have clear evidence that criminal groups tried to buy up to 300,000 votes,” Sandu said, calling it “fraud on an unprecedented scale”. She refrained, however, from accusing them of directly influencing the outcome of the election.
Sandu also highlighted external interference and the involvement of criminal groups that allegedly influence the situation in the country with “tens of millions of euros, lies and propaganda”. She called these actions “an unprecedented attack on freedom and democracy”.
In parallel with the presidential election, the country held a referendum on the inclusion of Moldova’s European course in the Constitution. After 98.42% of protocols were processed, 50.08% of voters supported the initiative, while 49.92% were against it. However, after processing data from 85% of the polling stations earlier, support for European integration barely exceeded 45%.
This referendum was positioned as a key decision on Moldova’s future course towards integration with the European Union, and it was held simultaneously with the presidential elections.
In total, almost 1.6 million Moldovan citizens took part in the voting, including about 240,000 abroad. Voting continues at polling stations in the United States and Canada.
