The technical tie in the plebiscite on constitutional reform reveals the great polarization at the internal level
Sandu and Stoianoglo will face each other again on November 3 in the second round of the presidential elections
Oct. 21 () –
The results of the presidential elections held on Sunday in Moldova and the referendum on the constitutional reform with which the Government sought to protect the path towards accession to the European Union shed new data on a country strongly divided under the growing influence of Russia, which has seen how Chisinau has moved closer to Brussels as the invasion of Ukraine progresses.
The small eastern European country, with just 2.5 million inhabitants and a pro-Russian separatist region, has seen ups and downs in its relations with Moscow on numerous occasions since the Cold War. Although Moldovan politics have concentrated their efforts around more Western ideas since the current president, Maia Sandu, came to power in 2020, Russia continues to maintain more than a thousand troops in Transnistria and tries to maintain its influence in the area. .
This region, governed for decades by independence leaders, is a headache for the Molvado Government. Its authorities have banned the name Transnistria to favor the Russian nomenclature, now considered the official name. Thus, they have considered this name as a “fascist” ending and continue to demand that the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic be used, a name it shares with the former Soviet socialist republic named in the 90s shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union.
The area has been used to a greater extent by Russia to exert pressure on the Government of Moldova, especially during the last two years and taking advantage of the fact that many Moldovans continue to view Moscow favorably.
This vicissitude has now been reflected in electoral results that give Sandu 42.3 percent of the support, followed precisely by the pro-Russian candidate Alexander Stoianoglo, who has obtained 26 percent of the votes and will face her in the second electoral return. Stoianoglo has run in the elections under the acronym of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM), a formation led by the opposition Igor Dodon, who was president of the country between 2016 and 2020.
This result, more differentiated in the case of the presidential elections, has not, however, been carried over to the referendum, which has resulted in 50.3 percent of the votes in favor of ‘yes’ and 49.6 percent in favor. that the Constitution is not reformed with a view to making the country part of the community bloc.
Sandu’s mandate, however, has suffered various ups and downs since he took office in December 2020. His former prime minister, Natalia Gavrilita, resigned in February 2023 due to the energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine, which inflation in the country skyrocketed and institutions collapsed due to the arrival of thousands of Ukrainian refugees across the border; two issues that have also underpinned the pro-Russian vision.
The tension in the country is such that even policies to change the name of the official language – from Romanian to Moldovan – have generated protests over the last year. With this measure, the authorities sought to distance themselves once again from the Russian sphere, given that the real difference between both languages is practically symbolic.
The idea of differentiating both languages is strongly linked to the Soviet Union, which advocated calling the language spoken in that area Moldovan when the territory was part of the federal socialist State in an attempt to distance it from Romania.
RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE
Sandu, who has denounced strong interference by Russia in this electoral process, has accused Stoianoglo, whom he dismissed as Attorney General in September 2023, of being the Kremlin’s candidate. Meanwhile, the candidate assures that the Moldovan president has launched a political hunt against him.
Stoianoglo’s popularity had already been greatly undermined due to a case of corruption, illicit enrichment and open abuse of power against him in October 2021 and which led to his arrest when he was heading the Prosecutor’s Office.
Despite the victory of the ‘no’ in the plebiscite, Sandu has reiterated that there are criminal groups in the country that, “in collaboration with foreign forces hostile to national interests, have attacked Moldova and have invested tens of millions of euros to finance lies and acts of propaganda” against the authorities.
The Moldovan oligarch and politician Ilian Shor has been accused in this regard of paying third parties to work to increase the electoral chances of the pro-Kremlin candidate and try to prevent the referendum from going ahead.
Shor, who is in Russia after being convicted in his home country of stealing $1 billion (about 921,000 euros) from Moldovan banks in a case dating back to 2014, saw his pro-Russian party dissolved last year. Shor, who was declared illegal for alleged irregularities
Although now it is Sandu that points to alleged electoral fraud, a week ago it was the opposition Civic Congress that accused the country’s authorities of drawing up a plan to undermine the electoral process for convenience.
According to what they warned from the formation, the leaders of the government party of Action and Solidarity have even declared “openly” that there are “short-term plans” in this regard. Thus, Chisinau has accused of repressing dissident voices, declaring its structures “outlawed” and preventing opposition parties from participating in said process.
A total of eleven candidates have competed for the position of head of state in Moldova, including the current president, but the opposition Victoria alliance, close to Russia and established by Shor, has been excluded from the electoral race by the authorities.
From Russia they have questioned the results of the presidential elections and the Kremlin spokesman, Dimitri Peskov, has argued that the data obtained “and the dynamics of its changes, raise many doubts” about its reliability.
Sandu and Stoianoglo will face each other again in a second round of elections that will take place on November 3 in the framework of what many already consider a race against time between Russia and the central government.
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