Final results in the Republic of Moldova. Maia Sandu won a new mandate as president of the country. The difference that brought him the victory

Presses across Prut announced that all 2,219 minutes from the second round of the presidential elections have been processed. According to the preliminary results, Maia Sandu accumulated 55.33% of the votes, and Alexandr Stoianoglo – 44.67%.

Thus, more than 929,960 voters voted for Sandu, while approximately 750,640 voted for Stoianoglo. The difference between the two candidates is more than 179,300 votes, Ziarul de Gardă notes.

Thus, Maia Sandu becomes president for the second time.

Stronger pro-European support in the diaspora than in the country

The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of the Republic of Moldova announced on Monday morning that the voting process for the second round of the presidential elections has ended, including in the diaspora. It was a process that started on Sunday at 0:00, in Tokyo, and ended on Monday morning, at 6:00, Chisinau time, with the last four polling stations, opened in the USA and Canada.

With the exception of three polling stations from the diaspora, whose data have not yet been processed, Maia Sandu therefore collected 55.41% of the votes, while Alexandr Stoianoglo has 44.49% of the votes.

The vote from the territory of the Republic of Moldova, where all the data was processed, shows that Stoianoglo was preferred by 51.19% of the voters, while Maia Sandu has 48.81% of the votes.

This result, which practically confirms what happened in the referendum two weeks ago – a stronger pro-European support in the diaspora than in the country – undermines the chances that Maia Sandu’s party, the pro-European PAS, will succeed in the 2021 performance of winning the absolute majority in parliament in next year’s legislative elections. In fact, former pro-Russian president Igor Dodon, whom Maia Sandu defeated in 2020, gave an interview to the Russian TASS agency in which he ridiculed Maia Sandu and said that she is the “president of the diaspora”, while Alexandr Stoianoglo , supported by his socialist party, is the one who won the domestic elections.

“Alexandru Stoianoglo, who was supported by the Socialist Party (from the Republic of Moldova), according to CEC data, won the presidential elections internally, where the counting was completed. Maia Sandu defeated him due to the vote from the polling stations abroad. The results show the failed government of Maia Sandu and her Action and Solidarity Party, to which the citizens of the country refused credibility. She turned into a president of the diaspora”, declared Dodon. According to him, Sandu obtained an advantage thanks to voters from abroad, “as happened during the referendum on EU accession, which failed internally, but was removed by the authorities with a minimum margin of 0.7% on account of the votes of the diaspora”.

In the diaspora, where the data from three polling stations still had to be centralized, Maia Sandu won the second round of the presidential elections with an overwhelming majority of 82.77% of the votes.

According to the CEC, 1,699,025 voters (54.31%) participated in the second round of voting, of which 328,855 were voters from the diaspora, being the strongest mobilization of Moldovans abroad to vote since the organization of polling stations vote abroad.

The highest turnout was registered at the two polling stations opened in Moscow, 4,999 voters each, followed by a voting station in Brescia – 4,463 voters and a voting station in Bucharest – 4,433 voters. In the top 10 polling stations where the most voters came, there are two from France, and the rest are stations from various other Italian cities.

Women voted in these elections in a much higher proportion than men – 54.79% against 45.21%, the Central Electoral Commission announced. Also, there is a mobilization of young people to vote, according to the CEC, quoted by News.ro.