Moldovans vote in pivotal parliamentary election amid Russian interference claims

Moldovans head to the polls Sunday to cast ballots in a high-stakes parliamentary election that experts say could decide the country’s geopolitical orientation toward the West or closer ties to Russia. The vote, for a 101-seat parliament, comes as Moldova wrangles with inflation and affordability pressures, all while contending with a well-financed, Moscow-backed push to shape the outcome. The ruling pro-Western Party of Action and Solidarity, or PAS, has held a parliamentary majority since 2021, but the campaign has grown deeply polarized and left the field crowded with Russia-friendly opponents and no clear pro-European coalition on the horizon. PAS leaders acknowledge that the result could either cement the country’s Western trajectory or pull it toward Moscow. “It would mean an end to EU integration,” Igor Grosu, the PAS leader and speaker of parliament, told The Associated Press. “There is no middle option.” “All our efforts and messages are about mobilizing to win a parliamentary majority,” he added.

Moldova’s vote unfolds against a broad security backdrop in which authorities say Russia is waging a “hybrid war” designed to derail the country’s EU path. Prime Minister Dorin Recean warned that Moscow is spending hundreds of millions of euros to try to “seize power in Chisinau” in a campaign he described as “increasingly radical.” He cited a large-scale vote-buying operation, cyberattacks on critical government infrastructure, a plan to incite mass riots around the election, and a sprawling online disinformation campaign intended to sway voters. Moldovan authorities have responded with hundreds of raids in recent weeks, detaining dozens suspects in what they call an anti-democratic campaign financed and orchestrated from abroad. President Maia Sandu has been blunt: the Kremlin “has accomplices here in Moldova,” describing them as people “willing to sell out their country for money.” Moscow has repeatedly denied meddling in Moldova. In a statement Thursday, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed allegations of Russian interference as “anti-Russian” and “unsubstantiated.”

Sunday’s ballot also comes less than a year after Moldovans narrowly backed the country’s EU path in a vote that reaffirmed Sandu’s reelection in a presidential runoff. Yet those votes were marred by similar accusations of Russian interference and a broad vote-buying operation that Moscow has denied. The economic strain of recent years has overshadowed the campaign, with widespread inflation and rising living costs weighing on voters’ minds. The European Union has pledged up to 1.9 billion euros in assistance to Moldova from 2025 to 2027, including 270 million euros released in July for projects such as a new hospital and efforts to lower energy bills.

Diaspora voting patterns are expected to be decisive. Last year, a record 327,000 Moldovans voted abroad in the presidential runoff, with more than 82% backing Sandu, helping secure her reelection. Local polls, however, typically exclude the diaspora, and about one-third of voters in Moldova remain undecided, leaving the outcome uncertain. Iulian Groza, executive director of the Institute for European Policies and Reforms, said Moldova has a “clear path toward becoming a member of the European Union,” but warned that Russia has identified these elections as “their ultimate battle—so this is why the stakes are very high.”

In parallel with the electoral contest, a number of opposition and fringe parties have faced sanctions and bans. The Central Electoral Commission barred the Heart of Moldova party, part of the Patriotic Electoral Bloc (BEP), from participating after a court ruling restricted the party’s activities for 12 months. The party’s leader, Irina Vlah, was also prevented from entering Latvia, Estonia and Poland, which accused her of “helping the Russian Federation