Moldova’s main pro-European party has won a resounding victory in parliamentary polls, results showed, strengthening the hand of President Maia Sandu, Aljazeera reports.
“Sunday’s snap election – called by Sandu in April to shore up her position against pro-Russia forces – saw her centre-right Action and Solidarity (PAS) party take 52.80 percent of the vote," the report reads.
PAS will get 63 seats in the 101-seat parliament for four-year terms, the Central Election Commission said on Monday, with all votes counted. A coalition of socialists and communists, led by former Kremlin-backed president Igor Dodon, came second with 27.17 percent. Shore Party received 5.75% votes.
The rest of the parties do not go to parliament because they received less than 5% of the vote.
“I hope that today will be the end of a difficult era for Moldova. I hope that today will be an end to the rule of thieves over Moldova,” Maia Sandu said in a statement, according to Aljazeera.
Her rival Dodon expressed disappointment in the result, saying in a statement: “We obviously wanted a higher overall percentage.” He congratulated his opponents but warned that his forces would be watching closely because it was dangerous for one party to have “the total monopoly over Moldovan politics”. Dodon said at a news conference on Monday that “this is a democracy, people wanted change,” but expressed concerns over the reformists’ ability to govern the country.
With this, Sandu’s party will receive an absolute majority of mandates and will be able to form a government. There was no such party in Moldova that would have received such a support from citizens