Was Democracy Really ‘Saved’ in Moldova?

From Brussels to Chisinau, sighs of relief gave way to open rejoicing as it became clear that Moldova’s pro-EU governing party had not only won Sunday’s parliamentary election but also retained an overall majority. Provisional results gave the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) around 50 per cent of the vote, leaving the two main opposition groupings, the Patriotic Electoral Bloc and the Alternativa Bloc, trailing with 24 per cent and eight per cent respectively.

The election had been cast by the passionately pro-EU president, Maia Sandu, as a choice between an EU future and a return to Moscow’s orbit, with the main opposition parties branded ‘pro-Russian’. Igor Grosu, leader of Sandu’s PAS, said it had been ‘an extraordinarily difficult battle’ and that Russia had thrown ‘everything it had’ at the election. Claims of ‘massive’ Russian interference were a staple of the PAS campaign.

The result was also hailed by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who wrote on X: ‘You made your choice clear: Europe. Democracy. Freedom.’ The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, also congratulated Sandu on having ‘saved democracy’ and ‘stopped Russia in its attempts to take control over the whole region’. ‘A good lesson’, he said, ‘for us all’.

The clarity of the vote seems to reinforce the choice (narrowly) made by Moldovan voters in last year’s referendum on EU membership and opens the way for Moldova to advance its European ambitions. It also removes the need for PAS to join another party in a coalition that could have risked instability or forced another election before long.