Moldova’s pro-EU president has won re-election

There wereEUEUNATO EU deep sighs of relief in the capitals of western Europe as well as among liberal-minded reformers in Chisinau, Moldova’s capital, when , the country’s incumbent president, was re-elected on November 3rd. Ms Sandu looks set for another four years in office after a nerve-jangling run-off against an opponent strongly backed by Russia. She had comfortably won the first round on October 20th with 42% of the vote against ten other candidates, but most of the also-rans were pro-Russian. The runner-up, Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former chief prosecutor, who got 26% in the first round, was expected to close the gap. Early returns showed him a whisker ahead. But Ms Sandu eventually clinched victory with 55% of the vote to his 45%. The late count for Moldova’s large diaspora, especially in western Europe, is thought to have tipped the result in her favour.Vladimir Putin, who is determined to recover a dominant influence in the borderlands of the former Soviet Union, will be disappointed that his , including vicious disinformation, crude bribery and sabotage, has narrowly failed to bring Moldova to heel. At the same time as the first round, a referendum had been held on whether to change the constitution to enshrine an aspiration for Moldova to join the European Union. This passed by the slimmest of margins.It will not be plain sailing for the doughty Ms Sandu. The pro-Russian parties may challenge the result amid stage-managed street protests. Her ruling party, which won a landslide victory in a parliamentary election in 2021, a year after she was first elected president, will face another tricky election next July. Moldovans have had a rough time in the past few years. They have been battered by covid-19, a bout of soaring inflation, sharp rises in the cost of gas and electricity, and the disruptive effects of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Moldova’s neighbour to the north and east. More than a million refugees have passed through Moldova, of whom 100,000 have remained among Moldova’s own shrinking population of around 2.5m. On top of these challenges, Ms Sandu’s supporters claim that Russia’s proxies in Moldova had at least 130,000 people on their payroll to buy votes and organise protests. An independent news organisation, , recently issued a video by an undercover reporter graphically showing how such bribes were dangled before Moldova’s impecunious and often bitter masses.With the yes vote in the referendum on the and Ms Sandu’s re-election both hopefully now secured, Moldova will continue its westward pivot, which speeded up after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Most Moldovans speak Romanian and regard Romania, a member of both the and , as its most important neighbour and trading link; Moldova was part of Romania between the two world wars. Should Russia prevail in Ukraine, Moldovans fear that their country could be next in line. Russia already has a strong influence and a small military base in Transnistria, a breakaway sliver of Moldova that runs alongside its border with Ukraine, whose Black Sea port of Odessa is only 58km from Moldova’s border.Ms Sandu, 52, a former economist at the World Bank who retains a reputation for honesty as well as efficiency, has also vowed to press on with her campaign against corruption, a scourge of the country since it became independent in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed. Russia has continued to operate through a web of corrupt Moldovan oligarchs; a fugitive banker, Ilan Shor, who was sentenced to 15 years in jail in absentia for a massive bank fraud uncovered in 2014, is believed to have handsomely funded Ms Sandu’s opponents to please the Kremlin.A drastic reform of the courts is a precondition for joining the, which Ms Sandu hopes to achieve by 2030. Last month the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said Moldova would receive €1.8bn ($2bn) in grants and loans over the next three years. That should help. But the country is still likely to be buffeted between assorted Slavs in turmoil on one side and its Romanian cousins on the other.