Moldova’s ruling pro-European party has retained its parliamentary majority after Sunday’s pivotal election, seen as a test of the president’s push to keep the country of 2.4 million on track for EU membership rather than drifting back towards Moscow.
With more than 99.5% of the ballots counted, Maia Sandu’s pro-western Action and Solidarity party (PAS) garnered 50.03% of the vote to elect members of the 101-seat parliament.
That compared to 24.26% for a Moscow-leaning alliance of Soviet-nostalgic parties headed by former president Igor Dodon, according to results published on the election commission’s website.
Sandu’s PAS party outperformed pre-election surveys, which had suggested it would remain the largest party but risk falling short of a majority – potentially limiting her push to deliver on a pledge of EU membership within a decade.
The result marks a major victory for Sandu, who has staked her presidency on a pro-European course and accused Russia of deploying unprecedented underhand tactics to sway voters in the impoverished nation squeezed between Ukraine and Romania.
The election results will be welcomed in Brussels and other European capitals, where fears were high that Moscow could gain a foothold in a strategically vital region as it intensifies its hybrid campaign across the continent.
Sandu is a former World Bank official who was elected as president in 2020 on a wave of anti-corruption sentiment. Her government oversaw a referendum last October in which Moldovans narrowly voted to enshrine EU membership as a constitutional goal. On the same day, Sandu was re-elected as president for a four-year term.
