Hi all,
Today it’s the 2nd round of presidential elections in Moldova. The candidates are:
- Maia Sandu - the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), pro-EU
- Alexandr Stoianoglu - Socialists (PSRM), less pro-EU, rather pro-Russia, supported more or less by the Kremlin.
Get your Moldovan friends to the ballots if you have any. I’ll try to keep you posted about any updates as much as I can (I’ll be on a hike so I likely won’t have that much cell service).
Here’s the Election Commission’s official website where you can see the presence in real time (as well as the results after the polls close): pv.cec.md/
Right now it’s around 10:00 AM here in Romania, I guess it’s the same in MD
Edit: if you know any Romanian/trust Google Translate enough, here’s a live feed: hotnews.ro/live-alegeri-in-rep…
https://feddit.org/u/petrescatraian@libranet.de
Seems all fine, right?
Pro-EU leader claims Moldova victory despite alleged Russian meddling
Moldova’s pro-EU President Maia Sandu has claimed a second term after a tense election run-off seen as a choice between Europe and Russia. With most votes counted Sandu had won 55%, and in a late-night speech she promised to be president for all Moldovans.
Her rival Alexandr Stoianoglo, who was backed by the pro-Russian Party of Socialists, had called for a closer relationship with Moscow.
During the day the president’s national security adviser said there had been “massive interference” from Russia in Moldova’s electoral process that had “high potential to distort the outcome”.
Russia had already denied meddling in the vote, which came a week after another key Eastern European election in Georgia, whose president said it had been a “Russian special operation”.
@0x815 it fortunately is. I’m happy that Moscow lost another foot in Europe.
I assume you agree that they will continue to interfere, but, yes, for now there is reason to celebrate a bit :-)
@0x815 as long as it has troops in Transnistria they will surely continue to interfere and do it rather efficiently (not to mention about Găgăuzia), but yes, for now it seems the tide has changed in favor of Moldova - at least for the time being.
Also, what I did not mention was that Maia Sandu won in the county of the runaway Ilan Shor. How the turns have tabled. 😁
The main post doesn’t update on Beehaw side, so I’ll leave these in the comments:
Update 5:43 PM local time: This is my first update for today, as I’m now in the train and I have service. At 2:00 PM local time, presence reached and surpassed 1 mil. people. Also, at 11:20 AM local time it was reported that there was a massive car queue on the Rezina bridge, coming from Transnistria. The bridge was subsequently closed by the police due to a bomb threat. Multiple bomb threats were reported outside the country as well, at polling stations in UK, at Liverpool and Northampton, and in Frankfurt, Germany. The Liverpool polling station was closed permanently, and voters were guided to go to Manchester.
Update 6:50 PM local time: 1,526,359 people have voted so far, meaning 50.09% of every person who has the right to vote. Previously, at 5:43 PM, the servers of the Central Elections Commission were attacked, which disabled the website for the current elections.
At 4:58 PM, a man aged 68 from Dochia county called the police after he was promised 1600 MDL to him by a 43 year old woman in order to vote against a certain candidate (according to the Moldovan police). The woman also promised his wife 2700 MDL for the same reason.
The police searched the woman and found 24,000 MDL, as well as lists of people, as well as flyers and other materials containing messages calling to vote against the candidate. The woman was held in custody for 72 hours.
At 1:49 PM, the Police reported activities of carrying people between multiple polling stations in Russia, Belarus, Azerbaidjan and Türkyie.
Update 6:50 PM local time: 1,526,359 people have voted so far, meaning 50.09% of every person who has the right to vote. Previously, at 5:43 PM, the servers of the Central Elections Commission were attacked, which disabled the website for the current elections.
At 4:58 PM, a man aged 68 from Dochia county called the police after he was promised 1600 MDL to him by a 43 year old woman in order to vote against a certain candidate (according to the Moldovan police). The woman also promised his wife 2700 MDL for the same reason.
The police searched the woman and found 24,000 MDL, as well as lists of people, as well as flyers and other materials containing messages calling to vote against the candidate. The woman was held in custody for 72 hours.
At 1:49 PM, the Police reported activities of carrying people between multiple polling stations in Russia, Belarus, Azerbaidjan and Türkyie.
Update 11:06 PM local time: Polls have closed. Preliminary results after counting 90.90% of the ballots show a slight advance of Stoianoglo over Sandu in the national count:
i.postimg.cc/MZQY9wdy/image.pn…
However, things look different in Chișinău:
i.postimg.cc/X7Kk08Mq/image.pn…
As well as in Diaspora:
i.postimg.cc/s2LpJHW6/image.pn…
Polls are not closed yet in the US and in Canada
Alternative source for following the results (it’s also in English): shrnk.org/md/
Update 11:24 PM local time: The aforementioned source now started showing who is the one currently leading in the votes. The results are tight, showing that either Maia Sandu is leading or Stoianoglo, changing from second to second, almost.
CNN Projects that Maia Sandu will win the elections:
Update 11:33 PM local time:
Maia Sandu is leading in the polls!
This time, on the official CEC page too!
i.postimg.cc/mDN7GLqq/image.pn…
Still 5.95% of the votes left to process, but 20% of the diaspora votes have been counted already, and the remaining ones are most likely in favor of Maia Sandu too (they’re in Western countries, and the diaspora there is less exposed to the Kremlin narratives). Polling stations are still open in the US.
HotNews (Ro) also says that 320,000 people voted in the Diaspora until 10 PM local time, a record figure.
In other news, the Police is investigating a 40-year-old woman in the Ungheni county for voter corruption. Investigators say that the woman was the local leader of the Criminal Organization Șor, who paid people to vote in a certain way.
Other cases of voter corruption were recorded in Chișinău (6), as well as the counties of Cantemir (1), Nisporeni (1), Rîșcani (1), Rezina (2), Anenii Noi (2), Orhei (2), Glodeni (1), Leova (1), Soroca (1), Șoldănești (1), Ungheni (1), Căușeni (1), Fălești (1), Hăncești (1), Ștefan Vădă (1) and in the autonomous territorial unit of Găgăuzia (1).
In Russia, Moldova opened just 2 polling stations, both in Moscow, citing security concerns. Ballot papers finished a little before 9 PM, when the vote was officially closed. People were angry, some chanting Down with Maia Sandu (in Romanian) (Source).
Update Monday, 12:13 AM, local time: Maia Sandu de facto won the elections. There are not enough votes for Stoianoglo to flip the results:
I am so glad to hear this! Thank you for sharing, I was anticipating the results of this!
Update Monday, 11:50 AM local time: Ziarul de Gardă published the map of the preliminary results of the elections.
There is also an easier to read map on r/Moldova, back on the spez site.
With the elections coming to a close, international reactions started to flow, most of them congratulating Maia Sandu, with Emmanuel Macron even writing a message in Romanian on X (formerly known as Twitter):
preview.redd.it/utmakul7otyd1.…
Translation:
I would like to congratulate Maia Sandu on her re-election as President of the Republic of Moldova. Democracy has triumphed in the face of all interference and maneuvering. France will continue to stand by Moldova on its European path
Other leaders who congratulated Maia Sandu were Ursula von der Leyen, Roberta Metsola, as well as the exiled leader of the Belarus opposition, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
As a personal note, I would also like to thank you for following my updates on this thread, as well as the previous one. I thought that there is too little content regarding the Romanian-speaking space here on fedi overall, hence why I decided to take the matter in my own hands. Do you have any feedback to give me on this? Perhaps you’re just as unsatisfied with the federation issues I have as much as I am. Or just write me any other nice stuff that you want 😀
If so, I created a form below:
