Members of an electoral commission count ballots after polling stations closed in Moldova’s parliamentary elections in Chisinau, Moldova, September 28, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Moldova’s pro-Western ruling party decisively won a parliamentary election fraught with Russian interference claims that was widely viewed as a stark choice between East and West.
With nearly all polling station reports counted, electoral data showed the pro-EU Party of Action and Solidarity had 50.1% of the vote, while the pro-Russian Patriotic Electoral Bloc has 24.2%. The Russia-friendly Alternativa Bloc came third, followed by the populist Our Party.
The tense ballot on Sunday (September 28, 2025) pitted the governing pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity against several Russia-friendly opponents but no viable pro-European partners. It looks to have secured a clear majority of legislative seats.
Sunday’s pivotal vote will elect a new 101-seat Parliament, after which Moldova’s President nominates a Prime Minister, generally from the leading party or bloc, which can then try to form a new government. A proposed government then needs parliamentary approval.
Moldova is landlocked between Ukraine and European Union member Romania. The country of about 2.5 million people has spent recent years on a westward path and gained candidate status to the EU in 2022, shortly after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Days before Sunday’s (September 28, 2025) vote, Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean warned that Russia is spending “hundreds of millions” of euros as part of an alleged “hybrid war” to try to seize power, which he described as “the final battle for our country’s future.”
The alleged Russian strategies include a large-scale vote-buying operation, cyberattacks on critical government infrastructure, a plan to incite mass riots around the election, and a sprawling disinformation campaign online to diminish support for the pro-European ruling party and sway voters towards Moscow-friendly ones.
Russia has repeatedly denied meddling in Moldova and dismissed the allegations last week as “anti-Russian” and “unsubstantiated.”
Published – September 29, 2025 12:10 pm IST
