‘Russian Trojan horse’ takes slim lead in Moldovan election

Alexandr Stoianoglo, an ex prosecutor-general, at 51.2% after 87% of votes counted as Kremlin accused of ‘massive interference’

The candidate backed by Moldova’s traditionally pro-Russia Socialist Party took a slender lead in Sunday’s presidential election, according to preliminary results after 87% of votes had been counted.
The results put Alexandr Stoianoglo, an ex prosecutor-general, on 51.2% but the votes of Moldova’s diaspora – who in the first round had favoured incumbent Maia Sandu – were yet to be counted.
Vlad Kulminski, a Chisinau-based political analyst, told Reuters he believed the early results indicated that Sandu had won the election. Neither Sandu nor Stoianoglo have commented.
Moldovan officials accused the Kremlin of trying to fix the vote in favour of Stoianoglo, who analysts had warned could unseat Maia Sandu as president.
“We’re seeing massive interference by Russia in our electoral process as Moldovans vote in the presidential run-off today, an effort with high potential to distort the outcome,” said Stanislav Secrieru, Ms Sandu’s national security adviser.
The allegations have been supported by photographs from Baku, Istanbul and Minsk, where observers said that Russia had flown in plane loads of pro-Kremlin Moldovans to vote.
There are only two polling stations in Russia, where roughly 500,000 Moldovans live, and are in Moscow.
A Moldovan source, who asked not to be identified, also said polling stations in Europe, the US and Britain could be targeted by Moscow with bomb hoaxes.
“The goal is to interrupt the voting process during the [bomb threat] evacuation and check by the police,” the Moldovan official told one of their European counterparts, according to Reuters.
Wedged between Romania and Ukraine, former Soviet Moldova has a population of 2.5 million and is considered vulnerable to influence from Moscow.
It has a large ethnic Russian minority and the Kremlin also controls Transnistria, a region of Moldova that broke away after a war in the 1990s.
Ms Sandu won the first round of voting a fortnight ago with 42 per cent of the vote. Some analysts had expected her to win outright and avoid a complicated second round.
Her opponent Mr Stoianoglo won 26 per cent of the vote on Oct 20.
Analysts said pro-Russia parties, including the overtly pro-Kremlin Socialist Party, were coalescing around Mr Stoianoglo and could top Ms Sandu, who wants Moldova to join the EU by 2030.
Dionis Cenusa, a fellow at the Vilnius-based Eastern Europe Studies Centre, said only 250,000 votes separated Ms Sandu and Mr Stoianoglo in the first round of voting.
“Stoianoglo’s biggest advantage is the protest vote, which accounts for the votes coming from most of the candidates who campaigned against Sandu in the first round – around 488,000 votes,” he said.
The full results of the second round were expected late on Sunday or early Monday.
A referendum on joining the EU was also held a fortnight ago. It was mired in allegations of vote buying by pro-Russia influence networks and was only passed by 50.35 per cent, far lower than expected.