“The expectation was that there would be a dramatic victory for the incumbent president,” said Vlad Lupan, Moldova’s former ambassador to the United Nations.
“The opinion polls in the Republic of Moldova are notoriously unreliable, with an extremely high margin of error, and that will be one of the explanations for today. The other is a scheme to buy voters by pro-Russian actors. Moldova is a relatively poor country and a number of people who would have voted one way were definitely targeted, particularly those with lower incomes.”
Victory for Russia?
Moldova has undergone a rapid pivot toward the West in recent years, with the war in Ukraine raging just across the border. Officials warned that Russian intelligence had made active attempts to disrupt the EU membership referendum, as well as the simultaneous election in which President Maia Sandu sought a second term.
“We are seeing the classic hybrid toolbox Russia uses to influence elections, but the magnitude is really unprecedented,” Gherasimov said. “We see hybrid attacks on public institutions responsible for critical services like the post office and the airport. We see vote-buying. We see the use of local corrupt proxies and political parties — they’re given cash to destabilize the situation on the ground.”
In September, Moldova’s national security adviser, Stanislav Secrieru, told POLITICO the country faced an “unprecedented onslaught” of hybrid tactics.
The country’s chief of police later alleged that more than $15 million in Russian funds had been funneled into the bank accounts of more than 130,000 Moldovan citizens in the lead-up to the elections as part of an apparent vote-buying scheme.
The EU dispatched a civilian mission to Moldova to help build resilience against threats from Russia, with Ukrainian security forces warning they had detected a plot to oust Sandu.
Earlier on Sunday, footage emerged of large crowds forming at two overseas polling stations in Russia, with Moldovan officials warning they had “been artificially created to jeopardize the electoral process.”