Russia’s Empire-Building Stumbles Over Tiny Moldova, as Maia Sandu Is Re-elected President

In a setback for Russia’s efforts to regain control over surrounding nations, Moldova’s pro-Western president won reelection Sunday. Maia Sandu says she overcame a $100 million, Moscow-orchestrated dirty tricks campaign. The Kremlin’s machinations included bomb threats telephoned into Moldovan polling stations in Western Europe, busing in voters from the Russia-controlled separatist part of Moldova, and flying pro-Russian voters in Russia to Turkey and Azerbaijan.Ms. Sandu actually lost the vote inside Moldova by two percentage points. Votes coming in from Moldovans living in Western Europe carried her over the top, with 55 percent of the vote. With almost 20 percent of total votes coming in from overseas voters, it was the largest diaspora vote on record. Her opponent, Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor general, is under criminal investigation for corruption. In a TV debate last week, Ms. Sandu denounced him as “Moscow’s man.” In response, Moscow officials call Moldova’s president “Russo-phobic.”Sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania, a NATO state, Moldova, a Maryland-sized nation of 3 million people, punches far above its normal strategic weight. If the Kremlin had succeeded in bringing Moldova back into Moscow’s orbit, Ukraine would have found itself stuck inside a hostile, pro-Russian horseshoe comprising Belarus, Russia, and Moldova.Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland yesterday hailed Ms. Sandu’s victory over “Russia’s aggressive and massive interference.” He expressed hope “that this trend will continue in the coming days and months in other countries as well.” However, the Kremlin got its way last week in Georgia, another wayward former Soviet republic. In that Black Sea nation, the party of a pro-Russian billionaire, Bidzina Ivanishvili, confounded opinion polls and exit polls and won parliamentary control for four more years. On Friday, two American pollsters commissioned by Georgian opposition forces questioned official results that showed the governing Georgian Dream party winning 54 percent of the vote. Pollster HarrisX said the official results were “statistically impossible.” Polling firm Edison Research said differences between its exit poll and the official results pointed to “manipulation” of the vote. President Salome Zourabichvili, an opposition leader, has called on opponents of Georgian Dream to demonstrate tonight in Tbilisi, the capital.In Moldova, Moscow will get a second chance next summer in parliamentary elections that will decide the composition of the new government. Hurting the chances of pro-Western forces, the anti-EU vote nearly won a constitutional referendum on October 20.After the count of votes of Moldovans living abroad, only 50.35 percent of voters favored enshrining the “irreversibility” of Moldova’s “European course” in the Constitution. Nevertheless, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, declared the tiny majority proof that Moldova “wants a European future,” despite “Russia’s hybrid tactics.”Ms. Sandu on Thursday posted on X that this position is now official: “Moldova takes a historic step as the Constitutional Court ruled today to enshrine EU integration in our Constitution, reflecting the will of the people in the recent referendum.”In advance of yesterday’s runoff vote, Moldova’s government was proactive in its attempt to minimize fraud. Polling officials accused of corruption in the first round of voting were removed from their posts. City bus riders were greeted with recorded warnings on loudspeakers: “This is the police. If someone offers you money to vote against one of the candidates in the election on Sunday, refuse. If you do not, you will be fined.” Yesterday, as voting was under way, Moldova’s national security adviser, Stanislav Secrieru, warned on X: “We’re seeing massive interference by Russia in our electoral process … an effort with high potential to distort the outcome.”After her reelection was assured late last night, Ms. Sandu denounced “hostile forces from outside the country and criminal groups.” The campaign of “dirty money and illegal vote buying,” she warned, was an “attack unprecedented in the whole of Europe’s history.”

Russia’s Empire-Building Stumbles Over Tiny Moldova, as Maia Sandu Is Re-elected President

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