Moldova stays on track

As I mentioned on Friday, Russia and its supporters were optimistic in advance of yesterday’s election in Moldova. The opinion polls suggested they had a strong chance of denying a majority to the pro-western government, if not actually winning a majority themselves. But those hopes have been badly disappointed.

The government of the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS; centre to centre-right), led first by Natalia Gavrilița and since 2023 by Dorin Recean, was elected four years ago in a landslide, winning 63 of the 101 seats in parliament. Its pro-Russian opponents – then called the Bloc of Communists & Socialists, now rebranded as the Patriotic Electoral Bloc – won 32 and the Shor Party, the vehicle of pro-Russian businessman Ilan Shor, won the remaining six.

A lot has happened in the region since 2021, most obviously the Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine. More than ever, Moldova is in the front line for Russian ambitions. The government has tried to counter that by pushing strongly for membership of the European Union; candidate status was achieved in 2022, but it came close to defeat last year when a referendum on European integration was carried with only 50.4% of the vote.

Pro-European president Maia Sandu (the founder of PAS) went on to win election for a second term with 55.4%, but this year she faced the possibility of having to cohabit with a pro-Russian government. With the Shor Party having been banned by the constitutional court (Shor lives in exile in Russia), it was uncertain whether anyone outside the two main parties would reach the 5% threshold for representation, and not at all clear which side they would support if they did.

But once again PAS won’t need any allies. Despite, or perhaps because of, the threat of Russian interference, the government has been very comfortably returned. With only eight polling places outstanding (mostly from North America), PAS is sitting on 50.1% of the vote (down 2.8%) and will drop just eight seats to 55. The Patriotic Bloc has less than half its vote, 24.2% (down 2.9%), and will take 26 seats (down six) – see official results here. (Apart from the threshold, voting is straight d’Hondt proportional over the whole country.)

Three smaller parties also made it into parliament. The Alternative, an alliance of left-wing groups with somewhat dubious pro-European credentials, won 8.0% of the vote and eight seats; Our Party, the vehicle of Renato Usatîi (left-wing populist), managed 6.2% (up 2.1%) and six seats, while Democracy at Home, a pro-Romanian party, was the big surprise with 5.6% (up 4.1%) also taking six seats. Turnout was 52.2%, low by historical standards but the highest since 2014.

So there will be a big sense of relief in both Brussels and Kyiv. The Moldovan majority has restated its preference for the west over Russia, although it remains a divided country; in the far south, where the population is ethnically Turkish or Bulgarian, the Patriotic Bloc scored huge majorities. And some voters from Russian-occupied Transnistria, in the east, were prevented from voting by strategically located construction sites – it would be wrong to suggest that one side has a monopoly on dirty tricks.

Attention now turns to Czechia, where a similar but much more complicated contest will play out in its election this weekend. We’ll try to get around to looking at that on Friday.

UPDATE, Tuesday morning: The final few polling places have now reported, bringing the PAS up to 50.2% but otherwise leaving the above figures unchanged. That’s a lead of about 410,000 votes and a majority of seven against all other parties combined. No-one else was anywhere near the threshold; best of the others were the European Social Democrats (pro-western left) with 1.0%.