Sunday’s elections in Moldova were not free and their incomplete results show a hard-to-explain increase in support for President Maia Sandu and the country’s pro-European orientation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this today.
Voters in Moldova decided who will become the new president in Sunday’s elections. At the same time, a referendum was held in which they answered the question of whether an article defining EU accession as a strategic goal should become part of the Moldovan constitution. After adding up almost all the results, 50.17 percent of people spoke in favor of Moldova’s European orientation.
“What we see is a hard-to-explain rate of increase in votes in favor of Sandu and in favor of the referendum participants who were in favor of orientation towards the EU,” Peskov said.
Although Sandu won the election, she did not receive the majority of votes needed to avoid a second round of voting. The pro-European politician said early this morning that both the election and the referendum were marred by “unprecedented” outside interference and that criminal groups working with “foreign forces hostile to our national interests” were trying to buy hundreds of thousands of votes.
“If she claims she didn’t get votes because of certain criminal groups, she needs to present evidence,” Peskov said. He also added that it would be good for Sandu to explain such a large part of the votes that do not agree with her policies. “Are they also criminal gangs? Or does she mean that Moldovan citizens who disagree with her are associated with criminal groups?” asked the Kremlin spokesman.
Moldova has repeatedly accused Russia of waging a hybrid war against it, meddling in its elections and conducting extensive disinformation campaigns in an attempt to topple the government and thwart the country’s path to the EU. Russia perceives the effort to integrate Moldova into the EU as a negative step and the interference of the West in its sphere of influence. But Moscow denies interfering in the events in Moldova and accuses the government of “Russophobia”.
Source: www.tyden.cz
