Moldovans
back joining the EU by razor-thin majority
Final result
sees ‘yes’ vote scrape ahead by 13,000 votes, narrowly avoiding shock setback
for pro-western president
Pjotr Sauer
Mon 21 Oct
2024 17.03 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/21/moldova-vote-join-eu-razor-thin-majority
Moldovans
have voted by a razor-thin majority in favour of joining the EU after a pivotal
referendum clouded by allegations of Russian interference.
On Sunday,
Moldova held key votes in a presidential election and a referendum on EU
membership, marking a critical moment in the continuing struggle between Russia
and the west for control over the small, landlocked nation in eastern Europe,
home to 2.5 million people.
After all
the votes were counted in the referendum that asked voters to choose whether to
enshrine in the country’s constitution a path toward the EU, the “yes” vote
crept into first place with 50.46% of the nearly 1.5m ballots cast, according
to the Central Electoral Commission.
The result
meant that the pro-EU campaign won by just more than 13,000 votes, narrowly
avoiding a shock setback for the pro-western president, Maia Sandu.
The separate
presidential election results showed Sandu topped the first round of the vote
with 42%. She will face her closest competitor, Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former
prosecutor backed by the pro-Russian Socialists, in the second round in two
weeks.
“Moldova has
won the first difficult battle in the push to join the European Union,” Sandu
said at a conference on Monday.
She also
decried attempts by “foreign forces” to buy votes, describing it as an “attack
on Moldovan sovereignty”.
The double
vote in one of Europe’s poorest countries was seen as a crucial test of Sandu’s
pro-European agenda. The result means a clause will be added to the
constitution defining EU accession as a goal, though the country’s potential
admission to the European bloc is still many years away.
The tight
referendum result will disappoint Sandu’s supporters and her allies in
Brussels.
Pre-election
surveys indicated that Sandu held a comfortable lead over Stoianoglo and other
candidates, while polls suggested that about 60% of voters supported the pro-EU
path in the run-up to the referendum.
Moldova
applied to join the EU after Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighbouring
Ukraine, which was condemned by Sandu and many in the country as tens of
thousands of Ukrainian refugees fled to its capital, Chișinău. Moldova
officially began EU accession negotiations in June, though scepticism remains
high about the country’s ability to implement the necessary democratic and
judicial reforms in the near future.
Observers
believe that a weakened Sandu could face a tricky second-round runoff against a
united pro-Moscow opposition front led by Stoianoglo.
According to
preliminary data, Moldovans inside the country voted against the referendum,
but ballots from the largely pro-EU diaspora, which were counted towards the
end, gave the yes campaign a last-moment push.
“Sandu had
hoped to receive a strong mandate to advance her push for EU integration, but
the narrow outcome raises significant questions about the level of support for
her policies,” said one western diplomat in Chișinău.
“Her
position is now shakier than it was prior to her decision to call the
referendum,” the official added.
The two
ballots were held amid claims by Moldovan authorities that Moscow and its
proxies had orchestrated an intense “hybrid war” campaign to destabilise the
country and derail its path towards the EU.
The
allegations against Moscow included funding pro-Kremlin opposition groups,
spreading disinformation, meddling in local elections and backing a big
vote-buying scheme.
As votes
were being counted on Sunday, Sandu blamed “foreign forces” for orchestrating
an “unprecedented assault on our country’s freedom and democracy”.
“We have
clear evidence that these criminal groups aimed to buy 300,000 votes – a fraud
of unprecedented scale,” Sandu added. “Their objective was to undermine a
democratic process.”
On Monday,
an EU spokesperson blamed Russia and its proxies for “unprecedented
interference” in the referendum vote.
“Moldova was
facing really unprecedented intimidation and foreign interference by Russia and
its proxies ahead of this vote,” the spokesperson said.
In
particular, officials in Moldova have accused the fugitive pro-Russian
businessman Ilan Shor, a vocal opponent of EU membership, of running a
destabilising campaign from Moscow.
Earlier this
month, the national police chief, Viorel Cernăuțanu, accused Shor and Moscow of
establishing a complex “mafia-style” voter-buying scheme and bribing 130,000
Moldovans – almost 10% of normal voter turnout – to vote against the referendum
and in favour of Russia-friendly candidates in what he called an
“unprecedented, direct attack”.
Last week,
law enforcement agencies said they had also uncovered a programme in which
hundreds of people were taken to Russia to undergo training to stage riots and
civil unrest.
Shor, who is
based in Moscow and denies wrongdoing, has openly offered on social media to
pay Moldovans to persuade others to vote in a certain way, and said that was a
legitimate use of money that he had earned. In the early hours of Monday, he
claimed Moldovans had voted against the referendum.
Marta
Mucznik, a senior EU analyst at the International Crisis Group, said: “The
impact of pro-Russian disinformation campaigns is evident. Tactics such as
spreading fake news, vote-buying, and portraying the EU negatively have
effectively swayed voters away from pro-EU sentiments.
“The narrow
margins highlight a deep split in public opinion and significant polarisation
over Moldova’s EU integration goals.”
Lithuania’s
foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, said the people of Moldova had “voted
for the European future despite all of Russia’s attempts to buy votes and other
foreign interference, including massive disinformation campaigns”. In written
comments to the Guardian, he said it was very important for security across
Europe to investigate how far foreign interference had affected the election
“and how much opinions were influenced by illegal means”.
Moscow on
Monday sought to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Moldovan elections,
claiming that the narrow margin in the country’s constitutional referendum on
EU membership “raised questions”.
“Even in
these circumstances … we saw just how many people don’t support President
Sandu’s ideology,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said as he urged
reporters to wait for the final results of the election.
Moldova’s
election is part of a series of key votes happening across the region this
year. Next week, Georgia, another former Soviet country caught in a tug-of-war
between Russia and the west, will hold key parliamentary elections, marking
another test of the region’s shift away from Moscow.
Additional
reporting by Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
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