CHIȘINĂU, Moldova — Moldovans voted on Sunday in a landmark parliamentary election that could determine whether the country stays on course to join the European Union, amid widespread warnings of interference by Russia.
The Central Election Commission is tallying results, with provisional counts set to come in through the night — although the outcome will only be fully verified after the watchdog and external observers present their findings later on Monday morning.
The pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) is hoping to secure a renewed majority, having held 61 seats out of 101 in the national parliament since 2021 and vowing to take the country into the EU within the next five years.
However, officials say the pro-Russian Patriotic Electoral Bloc (BEP) and the more opaque Alternativa opposition bloc stand to gain from a campaign of disinformation and bribery orchestrated from Moscow.
“Russia is pulling out all the stops to tip this election,” Moldovan National Security Adviser Stanislav Secrieru told POLITICO ahead of the vote. “We’re seeing unprecedented efforts: more money to buy votes, more AI-driven disinformation amplified by troll networks, and more resources dedicated to orchestrating street violence.”
The first results are primarily from small towns and villages, with ballots from bigger cities and overseas polling stations counted later. At 9.30 p.m. local time (8.30 p.m. Brussels) the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) will present preliminary results. From then on, results will be updated through the night, with results from larger cities and diaspora votes coming in around 11 p.m. local time.
Throughout Sunday, bomb threats were reported at polling stations abroad — including one that forced the evacuation of Moldova’s embassy in Brussels. “Police report intel on groups planning unrest in Chișinău starting tonight and during tomorrow’s protest called by the pro-Russian Patriotic bloc,” Secreriu later wrote online.
Last year, a referendum on EU membership narrowly passed and liberal President Maia Sandu secured a second term in office despite votes marred by allegations of Kremlin election meddling. In both cases, ballots from the hundreds of thousands of Moldovans living abroad — many in EU countries — were critical in swinging the result.
Dorina Baltag, a researcher at the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs and co-founder of diaspora group Noroc Olanda, said their votes would again be “of critical importance, both numerically and symbolically.”
“Over the past decade, the diaspora has consolidated itself as one of the most consistent pro-European constituencies, with electoral mobilization that often tips the balance in closely contested races,” she said.
However, the diaspora has also faced a wave of hybrid efforts to sway their votes or encourage them to stay home. More than 900 accounts have been identified working as part of a coordinated effort, spreading AI-generated disinformation linked to Russia.
According to Siegfried Mureșan, the Romanian MEP who chairs the European Parliament’s delegation to Moldova, “this is the last chance for Russia to affect Moldova’s EU integration path. Russia knows it. This is one of the reasons why they are so heavily invested there.”
This article is being updated.
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