🇲🇩🗳🇪🇺 With one bag of votes left from the diaspora to be counted, the Yes vote on the referendum on joining the European Union is ahead by 8k votes.

@Wallachian_Gazette

🇷🇺🗯🇲🇩 The Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, commented on the Moldovan elections:

🔸 He too alleged "irregularities" with the vote but refrained from calling the elections "stolen" unlike other Russian pundits

🔸 Peskov said it was "strange" how come the diaspora votes at the end turned the referendum in the favour of the EU party (actually, not at all surprising, Moldovan diaspora is liberal, pro-Romanian and very much anti-Russian)

🔸 Peskov called on Maia Sandu to provide evidence about the "criminal groups".

🔗 https://t.me/tass_agency/280642

🇲🇩🗳🇪🇺 Moldovan president, Maia Sandu, on X:

The people of Moldova have spoken: our EU future will now be anchored in the constitution. We fought fairly in an unfair fight—and we won.

But the fight isn’t over. We will keep pushing for peace, prosperity, and the freedom to build our own future.

🔗 Maia Sandu

🇪🇺❌🇷🇺 EU Commission spokesman, Peter Stano, said in a press briefing:

"We noted that this vote took place under unprecedented interference and intimidation by Russia and its proxies aiming to destabilise the democratic processes in the Republic of Moldova,"

🔗 https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2024/1021/1476575-moldova/

🇲🇩🗳🇪🇺 Final result of the referendum on joining the EU.

The number of votes in favor increased to nearly 50.5% thanks to the very liberal Moldovan diaspora.

Soon, Moldova will update its Constitution.

@Wallachian_Gazette

🇲🇩🗳⚡️ Final results of the 1st round of the 2024 Moldovan Presidential Elections.

Maia Sandu won with 42.45% of the vote, gaining 8% more compared to the 1st round in 2020. She will face off the socialist and ex-Chief prosecutor of Moldova, the ethnic Gagauz, Alexandr Stoianoglo.

Both Maia Sandu and Alexandr Stoianoglo have Romanian citizenship.

The 2nd round was scheduled on November 3rd meaning in under 2 weeks.

@Wallachian_Gazette

🇲🇩🗳🇪🇺 Moldovan fren: The latest elections in Moldova put on display the internal and arguably stupid divisions of Moldovan society

Both the pro-EU/American/Romanian side and the pro-Russia/Moldovan statehood politicians are cut from the same cloth, all having been friends at one point in the past or doing business with each other. The support bases are the same, ready to tear down each other for not supporting one side's incompetent candidate, always vengeful and always leading to the same status-quo as before.

Moldova has seen in the past 34 years many governments, ones that were arguably more Western lenient, others that were more oriented towards Russia but no one was willing to get too close to either side. Truth is that Moldova and the Moldovans, despite being indistinguishable from Romanians, other than a slight accent and the fact that almost all Moldovans are bilingual, speaking Russian and Romanian, prefer the current geopolitical situation, where Moldova has "two mother countries" and have been enjoying funding from both Bucharest and Moscow.

Although both sides like to blame each other for "stealing votes" and election fraud, there are no legitimate questions of mass manipulation of the voting process like in the 2020 U.S. presidential elections in the swing states. The referendum on joining the EU and its results portray perfectly how Moldovans feel about the EU and Russia, with one half of the country favoring closer ties with the West and the other half with the East.

Then there is the generational gap. Older generations of Moldovans favor ties with Russia and miss the days of the USSR when Moldova was a tourist destination for Russians. Younger generations, starting with the 1980s remember the poverty of the late USSR when tourism revenue in the former soviet republic dried up and the Transnistrian War, which still is fresh in the minds of most in the country as many lived through it, lost friends/relatives and its consequences play a major role in the internal politics of Moldova today.

The older generations, which are currently 55+years old, were too old to leave the country when the USSR fell and independence followed so they stood home meanwhile the younger people took the opportunity brought by the opening of the border to emigrate abroad to find work. As a result massive communities formed across Europe and North America of Moldovans who kept supporting their relatives at home by sending remittance money and have remained politically active.

PAS in Moldova today has managed to motivate them to vote to a level not seen before in Moldova's elections. Then there is also the fact that PAS nearly cancelled the elections in Russia, so the massive pro-EU vote of the diaspora is valid but only because the Russian diaspora could not vote. Only two voting sections were opened and both were in Moscow with 5k ballots each. In Romania for example, 3 sections were opened in Bucharest and they even brought additional ballots from elsewhere. This did not happen in Russia.

@CIG_telegram

🇲🇩🗳🇪🇺 One more thing that needs to be said about the referendum on joining the European Union:

The pro-Russian side sabotaged itself. Some parties including PSRM who came 2nd and PDCM told their supporters to boycott the referendum and not vote.

Our Party (PN) who came 3rd, didn't pronounce itself on the referendum leaving its supporters to vote or not as they feel like.

Only the communists and Ilan Shor's people urged their supporters to vote against joining the EU. If PSRM and PDCM and PN had told their supporters to reject the referendum, it would have been rejected.

@Wallachian_Gazette

🇦🇱🇷🇸 Albania and Serbia signed a MoC in tourism as part of the Open Balkan initiative

The agreement focuses on boosting tourism between the two countries and fostering joint projects in the sector.

@balkan_grad