After the stable lead of the pro-European candidate Maya Sandu, with 42 to 26 percent in the first round, the presidential run-off is on the verge of a complete reversal.
Sandu-fired former chief prosecutor Alexander Stoyanoglo, backed by the pro-Russian Socialist Party, won 51 to 49 percent with 90 percent of the records processed.
A runoff in the presidential elections in Moldova was fateful, because it is a choice between the European future and the return of the former Soviet republic to the Russian orbit.
Authorities said there was massive Russian interference in today’s vote and blamed an oligarch who fled to Russia in an attempt to buy the election. Moscow denies interference.
According to Moldovan police, exiled oligarch Ilan Shor transferred $39 million within two months from his Moscow accounts to Moldovan banks and bought at least 138,000 votes. In Moldova, Shor is facing many years in prison for money laundering and embezzlement.
The contender Stoyanoglo denies ties to the oligarch, but enjoys the full support of the pro-Russian opposition Socialist Party of former President Igor Dodon. It is said that he also collected the votes of the other candidates who dropped out of the first round.
The outcome of the elections largely depends on one million and 200 thousand Moldovans who live outside the country.
The Moldovan Electoral Commission announced that it has data on the organized illegal transportation of voters from Russia to Belarus, Azerbaijan and Turkey. Polling stations in Istanbul, Minsk, Yerevan and Baku were said to have seen queues with people waiting an hour and a half on average.
The Russian propaganda agency RIA Novosti reported that a huge queue of people wishing to vote in the second round of the presidential elections lined up outside the Moldovan embassy on Kuznetsky Bridge in Moscow. The Moldovan authorities allowed the opening of only two polling stations in Russia – both in Moscow. And according to RIA Novosti, despite the fact that up to half a million Moldovan citizens live in the Russian Federation, the CEC of the country has allocated only 10 thousand ballots for voting on Russian territory.
The Moldovan government’s Telegram channel reported that the police “registered an organized transport of voters to polling stations both outside the country and on the territory of Moldova.”
“National authorities are investigating and gathering evidence in connection with air transport activities of voters from the Russian Federation to Belarus, Azerbaijan and Turkey,” the statement said. Centralized and mass transport of voters is prohibited by national law.
The National Security Adviser to the President of Moldova, Stanislav Sekrieru, accused Russia of meddling in the election and as proof released a video in which passengers on the flight showed Moldovan passports.
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