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

Incumbent president Maia Sandu claims foreign forces hostile to Moldova had to tried to influence the election

Moldova's President Maia Sandu prepares to cast her vote, in Chisinau, Moldova (AP)

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 amid concerns of election meddling.

After nearly 99 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 into first place with 50.18 per cent of a total 1.4 million ballots cast, according to the Central Electoral Commission.

Only hours earlier, president Maia Sandu, who is also engaged in a election run-off with former prosecutor general Alexandr Stoianoglo, said there was clear evidence of meddling.

In a statement to Moldovans, Ms Sandu said there was “clear evidence” that criminal groups working together 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 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.

A man casts his vote in a mobile ballot box in the village of Hrusevo, Moldova (AP)

While far from a major success, the results worked in favour of the incumbent pro-EU president Ms Sandu, who was running in Sunday elections to keep her post. Early on Monday, she had 41.91 per cent of the vote with 97.7 per cent of the vote counted.

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 neighboring Ukraine, and was granted candidate status that summer, alongside Ukraine. Brussels agreed in June to start membership negotiations. This vote was an opporunity for the public to have a say in any possible accession to the bloc.

Sandu’s main rival in the presidential election, Mr Stoianoglo, had 26.32 per cent of the vote, setting the stage for a 3 November run-off in the poor ex-Soviet southeast European nation.

The vote goes to a run-off if no candidate clears the 50 per cent mark.

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

Earlier this month, Moldovan police accused Mr Shor, 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.

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.