CHISINAU: Moldova’s pro-Brussels President Maia Sandu on Monday said her camp “won justly in an unjust struggle” in an EU referendum and first-round presidential elections marked by claims of Russian interference.

The referendum on joining the EU passed with a razor-thin majority, while Sandu managed to come first in a key electoral test for her leadership of the former Soviet republic bordering war-torn Ukraine.

Sandu said “dirty interference” cost her camp support, after blaming “criminal groups, working together with foreign forces hostile to our national interests” for “an unprecedented assault” on Moldova’s democracy.

The Kremlin called on Sandu to “prove” allegations that it had interfered in the elections and alleged “anomalies” in Moldova’s vote count.

Sandu, 52, a former World Bank economist and Moldova’s first woman president, is expected to face a tough second round presidential vote on Nov 3 against Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor backed by the pro-Russian Socialists.

A European Union spokesman said voting was marred by Russia’s “unprecedented interference and intimidation”. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said Moldova chose “a European future” despite “Russia’s hybrid tactics”.

Sandu, who beat a Moscow-backed incumbent in 2020, applied for Moldova to join the European Union following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and accession talks began this June.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2024