Moldova commits to join EU in marginal vote as president claims foreign interference

A little more than half of Moldovans have voted in favour of the country committing to join the European Union, winning a razor-thin majority despite concerns of election meddling.

After 99.14 per cent of votes were counted in Sunday’s referendum, which asked voters to choose whether to enshrine in the country’s constitution a path toward the EU, the “Yes” vote crept over the line with 50.39 per cent of the more than 1.5 million ballots cast, against 49.61 per cent who voted “No”, according to the Central Electoral Commission.

Moldova’s president Maia Sandu, who is also engaged in an election run-off with former prosecutor general Alexandr Stoianoglo, said there was clear evidence of meddling.

In an address to the southeast European nation on the day of the referendum, Ms Sandu said there was “clear evidence” that criminal groups working with foreign forces hostile to Moldova’s interests sought to buy off 300,000 votes, something she called “fraud of unprecedented scale”.

“Their objective was to undermine a democratic process. Their intention was to spread fear and panic in society ... We are waiting for the final results, and we will respond with firm decisions,” she said.

Partial results revealed around the same time that Ms Sandu was speaking had shown 57 per cent were unwilling to commit to joining the EU.

Analysts said ballots from the largely pro-EU diaspora were counted towards the end, giving the “Yes” campaign a last-minute push.

On Monday, Ms Sandu reiterated her claims, calling it a “vile attack” on Moldova’s sovereignty.

“Unfortunately, the justice system failed to do enough to prevent vote rigging and corruption,” she told a news conference. “Here, too, we must draw a line, correct what went wrong, and learn the lesson. We heard you: we know we must do more to fight corruption.”

While far from a major success, the results worked in favour of the incumbent pro-EU president, who was running in Sunday’s elections to keep her post. She took 42 per cent of the vote in a field of 11 but failed to reach the 50 per cent mark of outright victory.

Ms Sandu’s main rival in the presidential election, Mr Stoianoglo, had 26 per cent of the vote, setting the stage for a 3 November run-off.

The referendum and the presidential vote are seen as a test of the deeply divided nation’s willingness to keep close ties with Russia or to embark on the potentially lengthy process of joining the EU.

Moldova, a former Soviet republic with a population of about 2.5 million, applied to join the EU in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, and was granted candidate status that summer, alongside Ukraine. Brussels agreed in June to start membership negotiations. This vote was an opportunity for the public to have a say in any possible accession to the bloc.

The run-up to the vote was overshadowed by a slew of allegations of election meddling by fugitive Ilan Shor who lives in Russia. Moscow has denied interfering, while Mr Shor denies wrongdoing.

Earlier this month, Moldovan police accused the Israeli-born tycoon, who was jailed in absentia for fraud and theft, of trying to pay off a network of at least 130,000 voters to vote “No” and support “our candidate” at the elections.

Mr Shor has openly offered on social media to pay Moldovans to convince others to vote in a certain way and said that is a legitimate use of money that he earned.

The oligarch’s populist Russia-friendly Shor Party was declared unconstitutional last year and banned. In the early hours of Monday, he said Moldovans had voted against the referendum.

“Today I congratulate you, you lost the battle,” he added, addressing Ms Sandu simply as Maia.

After the updated result was published, the Kremlin claimed that the increase in votes in favour of the European Union was “hard to explain”.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “What we see is a mechanically hard-to-explain rate of increase in votes in favour of Sandu and in favour of those referendum participants who favoured an EU orientation.”

Ahead of the vote, Moldovan authorities took down online resources they said hosted disinformation, announced they had uncovered a programme in Russia to train Moldovans to stage mass unrest and opened criminal cases against allies of Shor.

In Brussels, the European Union’s executive branch, the European Commission, said that its services had also noted Russian interference in Moldova, and it underlined its continued support for Moldova on its EU accession path.

“This vote took place under unprecedented interference and intimidation by Russia and its proxies, aiming to destabilize the democratic processes in the Republic of Moldova,” spokesperson Peter Stano said.

Stano told reporters that allegations of vote buying, the bussing of voters and disinformation are only the most recent forms of Russian interference, and that attempts to undermine Moldova and its support for the EU have been going on for months.