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Moldovans voted on Sunday in historic parliamentary elections that could determine whether the country stays on track to join the European Union, amid widespread warnings of interference from Russia. The Central Election Commission is counting the results, with preliminary counts expected overnight, although the outcome will only be fully verified after the oversight body and outside observers present their findings later Monday morning.
The pro-European Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) hopes 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 obscure opposition bloc Alternativa will benefit from a disinformation and bribery campaign orchestrated by Moscow.
" Russia is doing everything it can to subvert these elections. We are seeing unprecedented efforts: more money to buy votes, more disinformation driven by artificial intelligence amplified by troll networks, and more resources dedicated to orchestrating street violence ," Moldova's National Security Advisor, Stanislav Secrieru, told POLITICO ahead of the vote.
The first results are mainly from small towns and villages, with ballots from larger cities and polling stations abroad counted later. At 21:30 local time, the Central Election Commission (CEC) will present preliminary results. From then on, results will be updated overnight, with results from larger cities and diaspora votes coming in around 23:00 local time.
Throughout Sunday, bomb threats were reported at polling stations abroad, including one that forced the evacuation of the Moldovan embassy in Brussels.
"Police report information on groups planning riots in Chisinau 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 passed by a narrow margin, and liberal President Maia Sandu secured a second term in office despite votes tainted by accusations of Kremlin election interference. In both cases, ballots from hundreds of thousands of Moldovans living abroad - many of them in EU countries - were critical in changing the outcome.
Dorina Baltag, a researcher at the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs and co-founder of the diaspora group Noroc Holland, said their votes would again be of critical importance, both numerically and symbolically.
" Over the last decade, the diaspora has consolidated itself as one of the most stable pro-European constituencies, with electoral mobilization that often changes the balance in closely contested races ," she said.
However, the diaspora has also faced a wave of hybrid efforts to influence their votes or encourage them to stay home. More than 900 accounts have been identified working as part of a coordinated effort, spreading artificial intelligence-generated disinformation linked to Russia. According to Siegfried Mureșan, the Romanian MEP who heads the European Parliament delegation to Moldova, “this is the last chance for Russia to influence Moldova’s path to EU integration. Russia knows this. This is one of the reasons why they are so heavily invested there.”
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