Moldovan President Maia Sandu's Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) looks set to come out on top of crucial elections despite what appears to have been a concerted disinformation campaign from the Kremlin. But the real winner may be Brussels.
PAS, a pro-Western party in one of Europe's poorest nations, faced a stiff challenge from its biggest rival, the Patriotic Electoral Bloc, an alliance of pro-Russian parties led by the former Moldovan President Igor Dodon.
The result -- PAS is predicted to have taken at least 54 of parliament's 101 seats -- is stunning given that many polls had the two fractions neck-to-neck with the Kremlin putting considerable effort into trying to tip the balance in its favor.
With Moldova crammed between Ukraine and NATO and European Union member Romania, Brussels was on edge for weeks leading up to the September 28 vote.
A pro-Russia win would have put a major wedge into its eastern flank at a time Moscow appears emboldened to test the West's resolve while grinding out gains on battlefields in Ukraine.
It appears it can now breathe a sigh of relief that Moldova will remain outside of the Kremlin's reach, at least for the meantime.
"Moldova’s pro-European victory is a lesson for all Europe on how to defend against Russian interference," according to Siegfried Muresan, a European member of parliament and vice president of the European People's Party.
"Moldova remains firmly anchored on the pro-European path. Good news for the people of Moldova! Good news for Europe!"
The result is a political hattrick for Sandu, with the parliamentary election win coming less than a year after she was returned to the presidential palace and a referendum on EU membership that was won by a whisker.
The stakes were indeed monumental in an election that very much was seen as a choice between Brussels and Moscow. And neither side made any secrets about who they were backing.
In the run-up, Russia claimed NATO was preparing to "occupy" Moldova, though it gave no evidence and has repeatedly accused the government in Chisinau of "anti-Russian hysteria."
Sandu, and others, accused the Kremlin of “pouring hundreds of millions of euros" into the country to spread disinformation.
In recent weeks, Moldovan authorities followed up these allegations by carrying out police raids throughout the country aimed at what they called "preparation of mass riots and destabilization, which were coordinated from the Russian Federation through criminal elements."
Two pro-Russian parties -- the Heart of Moldova and Moldova Mare (Greater Moldova) -- were also barred from participating in this weekend's vote after allegations of voter bribery, illegal party financing, and money laundering -- the final decision on Greater Moldova was made on September 28, hours after the vote began.
The European Union, normally strictly neutral about elections in member states and candidate countries, made little effort of hiding its allegiances for PAS with a European Commission spokesperson noting that Russia was “deeply interfering in the electoral process."
But it didn’t stop there.
Numerous European leaders showed up in Chisinau in recent times with obligatory photo-ops with Sandu, sanctions on pro-Russian politicians have been imposed and enlarged in the last couple of years, and a 1.9 billion euro ($2.23 billion) growth plan for the next three years was unveiled in early 2025 to finance infrastructure and energy projects in the country.
Perhaps the coup de grace was delivered just three days before the vote when Greece allowed for the extradition of the oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc.
The image of the lead suspect in a long-running investigation into the disappearance of some $1 billion from banks back in 2014 arriving in handcuffs in Chisinau was just the tonic that Sandu, who has built her entire career on fighting graft, needed.
The fact is that the EU simply could not afford to lose this vote.
Since the Georgian Dream clung to power in a parliamentary election in Georgia last fall, Tbilisi has slipped away from talks about bloc membership, even if the country still nominally is a candidate.
And with no end in sight for the war in Ukraine and the momentum on the battlefield still favoring Russia, Moldova remains the only country in the club’s eastern neighborhood that has a viable chance of becoming a member.
The goal of achieving that this decade remains after the election.
Chisinau and Brussels are ready to open negotiations on all 33 enlargement chapters. It can go fast as the EU is keen to add at least a few more members both from the Western Balkans and the east before the next European election in 2029.
So far, nothing has moved as Moldova and Ukraine are coupled in the process and Hungary is blocking Kyiv’s EU path due to minority rights issues.
It could well be that Moldova now moves ahead without Ukraine, potentially even later this year.
The PAS win is a Ukrainian win as well.
An important hub for the war-torn country, Kyiv could ill-afford having another hostile neighbor, this time to its west.
Now, it could well be that Moldova is the locomotive that pulls Ukraine with it into the EU.
That is what EU officials had in mind when both countries were given the green light to join the bloc three years ago. The pro-European victory at least ensures that the possibility still is real.
