Moldova election results: pro-EU party defies Russian 'dirty tricks'

President Sandu’s Party of Action and Solidarity takes half of the total votes so far in a general election dogged by claims of disinformation and threats

https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/moldova-election-results-2025-russia-9llmxm03b

https://archive.ph/pncNv



Moldova has been fêted by European leaders after the tiny country’s pro-EU government held on to its majority in a bruising election on Sunday marked by “dirty” Russian tricks. In a crucial vote determining whether the former Soviet republic stayed on course for EU membership or shifted back into orbit of Moscow, the pro-western Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) took just over 50 per cent of votes.

That comfortably exceeded the 24.26 per cent scored by the pro-Russian Patriotic Electoral Bloc and is likely to guarantee PAS a slim majority of 55 seats in the 101-seat parliament thanks to the redistribution of votes from fringe parties that did not receive enough votes to enter parliament.



The result followed allegations of widespread Russian voter bribery and online misinformation. “Russia threw everything dirty it had into the fight … It’s not only PAS that won the elections; the people won,” the PAS leader, Igor Grosu, said on Monday. “Russia failed to destabilise Moldova even after spending huge, huge resources to undermine it and to corrupt whoever they could,” President Zelensky of Ukraine said, while the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, praised the “real courage” of Moldova and the country’s president, Maia Sandu, who founded the PAS party.

“Not only did you save democracy and kept the European course but you have also stopped Russia in its attempts to take control over the whole region. A good lesson for us all,” he said. The re-election of PAS means Moldova will continue EU accession talks, which started last year. “They chose democracy, reform, and a European future, in the face of pressure and interference from Russia,” said António Costa, president of the European Council.



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