Moldova’s pro-EU President Maia Sandu has won a second term in office after defeating her pro-Russian rival.
With nearly 98% of votes counted in the second round of the presidential race held on Sunday, Ms Sandu had obtained 54% of the total votes, according to the website of the country’s Central Electoral Commission.
This compared with 46% for Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor general who was backed by the pro-Russia Party of Socialists.
Ms Sandu said in a victory speech that the government needed to prepare the country for parliamentary elections next summer and preserve democracy.
She told reporters that she had heard the voices both of those who voted for her and those who voted for her rival.
The president added that her main objective for the coming years would be to be a leader for everyone.
Ms Sandu has been championing Moldova’s effort to join the EU by 2030, while Mr Stoianoglo said that as president he too would back EU integration but also develop ties with Russia in the national interest.
He vowed to try to revive cheap Russian gas supplies and said he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin if Moldovans wanted it.
“I voted for a free, stable and blossoming Moldova that isn’t standing with its hand out, but develops in harmony based on relations with the West and East,” Mr Stoianoglo said after casting his ballot.
Moldova, an eastern European country of three million people, narrowly voted for closer ties to the European Union in a referendum last month which was dominated by claims of Russian interference.
The election was closely watched in Brussels a week after Georgia, another ex-Soviet state seeking membership, re-elected a ruling party regarded in the West as increasingly pro-Russian.
The future of Moldova, a poor agricultural nation of fewer than three million people, has also been in the spotlight since Russia began its full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in 2022.
The election and the campaign before it were overshadowed by persistent claims of Russian meddling.
“We’re seeing massive interference by Russia in our electoral process… an effort with high potential to distort the outcome,” Ms Sandu’s national security adviser Stanislav Secrieru wrote on X.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow, which has denied past allegations of meddling.
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Alexander Stoianoglo is backed by the pro-Russian Socialist Party. Pic: AP
The presidential election result sets the tone for the parliamentary election next year, when Ms Sandu’s party may struggle to retain its majority.
Mr Stoianoglo’s East-West balancing rhetoric contrasted with Ms Sandu’s four years in power, during which ties with the Kremlin have unravelled, Moscow’s diplomats have been expelled, and she has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow calls her government “Russophobic”.
Mr Sandu portrayed Mr Stoianoglo as the Kremlin’s man and a political Trojan horse, painting Sunday’s vote as a choice between a bright future in the EU by 2030 or one of uncertainty and instability.
Mr Stoianoglo said that was untrue and that Sandu had failed to look out for the interests of ordinary Moldovans.
He accused her of divisive politics in a country that has a Romanian-speaking majority and large Russian-speaking minority.