Previewing Moldova's Presidential Race and Referendum on EU Membership

(ELENA COVALENCO/AFP via Getty Images)

Moldovan President Maya Sandu delivers a speech in Chisinau on Sept. 20, 2024, during a rally to launch her reelection campaign.

Pro-Russian political forces are unlikely to win Moldova's presidential election or derail a constitutional referendum on EU membership, but the future of the country's European integration will remain in question until next year's high-stakes parliamentary election. On Oct. 1, revelations emerged that the pro-Russian Socialist Party's presidential candidate, Alexandr Stoianoglo, has dual citizenship with neighboring Romania, an EU member. Media aligned with President Maya Sandu and her pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) framed this as hypocritical, given Stoianoglo's previous attacks on PAS for its pro-Romanian and pro-EU stances. The revelations also upset some of Stoianoglo's supporters, who are wary of deepening Moldova's ties with Romania and the broader European Union. While Stoianoglo downplayed his Romanian citizenship, it may weaken Eurosceptics' position in the Oct. 20 constitutional referendum, which proposes adding mention of Moldova's course toward EU membership to the country's constitution. The controversy also risks harming Stoianoglo's own prospects in the concurrent Oct. 20 presidential election, which will likely advance to a runoff race against Sandu in early November.

Standing at the center of the Bessarabian Gap separating European powers from Russia's historical sphere of influence in Eurasia, the territory of modern Moldova has long geopolitically teetered between Russia and the West. While the government has begun to move decisively toward European integration since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moldova's pro-Western orientation will face its greatest tests yet during the key votes this month, as well as the 2025 parliamentary election.
Moldova's Central Election Commission registered a record 11 candidates to run in the Oct. 20 presidential race. However, among the candidates rejected was parliamentarian Vasile Bolea, the nominee of the new pro-Russian political bloc named ''Victory'' run by fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor. In recent years, Shor's allies have begun to steadily displace the Socialist Party and other historically leftist parties as the most popular pro-Russian political movement in Moldova, highlighting continued divisions among Eurosceptic political forces that complicate Russia's ability to influence Moldovan politics. Still, Russia has become increasingly brazen in its efforts to interfere in the upcoming presidential election and referendum, with Moldova's national security adviser Stanislav Secrieru citing an ''unprecedented onslaught'' of Russian influence efforts. On Oct. 3, the head of Moldova's national police announced that detectives had uncovered over $15 million worth of funds that Russian sources linked to Shor have funneled into the bank accounts of more than 130,000 Moldovan citizens in the past month alone, in order to buy their support and fund agitation for pro-Russian candidates.
Possession of Romanian citizenship is extremely common in Moldova. Official statistics show that well over half the country — 1.5 million of Moldova's 2.4 million people — hold dual citizenship, with Romanian citizenship by far being the most common.

While the majority of Moldovans will likely vote in favor of EU membership in the referendum, polls suggest that Sandu will not win enough votes in the first round to avoid a runoff, with potentially close margins in both ballots raising questions about the country's European integration. If none of the 11 presidential candidates secure over 50% of the vote on Oct. 20, the race will advance to a runoff. Polling data suggests this is highly likely, as Sandu is currently only projected to secure over 30% in the first round, while Stoianoglo and a couple of other candidates are slated to receive about 15%, with the rest struggling to secure much more than 5-7%. Sandu is still expected to ultimately win reelection, given the lack of a single formidable challenger who her detractors can rally around. However, her limited popularity suggests the margin of victory in both the presidential and EU votes could prove relatively close for Sandu's government and other pro-European political forces, which would embolden the pro-Russian political movement against EU integration. Most importantly, a lack of enthusiasm for Sandu could deflate turnout for the Oct. 20 presidential election and, in turn, support for the concurrent constitutional referendum on EU membership. The referendum is still likely to pass and secure the 33% turnout needed to be valid, but lower turnout among pro-EU voters could make for a closer result, as recent polling shows that only around 56% of Moldovans support EU membership and 34% oppose, with the rest undecided. Additionally, Moldovans who vote for other nominally pro-EU candidates in the first round of the presidential race may not necessarily back Sandu, or even vote in the second round, believing the country's EU course is safer following the referendum's passage, which could result in a tighter margin of victory in the presidential runoff.

Following the referendum's passage, the European Union will certainly announce further financial assistance and support measures for Moldova in order to boost the prospects of pro-European candidates running in the country's 2025 parliamentary election. However, a weaker-than-expected showing of support for Sandu and the referendum could raise questions about the effectiveness of such efforts by highlighting the failure of the reforms Chisinau has already undertaken to elicit more overwhelming support for Sandu and EU integration. Still, a narrow victory by pro-EU forces in both votes would result in continued EU support for Moldova, as Brussels will remain interested in Chisinau's pro-Western alignment.

The likely close outcome of the two votes will underscore the high stakes of Moldova's parliamentary election next year, which could pose a significant threat to the country's political stability and European integration. Arguably the biggest threat to Moldova's pro-European trajectory comes not from the two impending Oct. 20 votes themselves, but how the outcome of the votes impact Moldova's 2025 parliamentary election, which will take place no later than July 11. In Moldova, which is a parliamentary republic, the president's powers are largely ceremonial compared with the parliament. In fact, progress on the country's European integration has only been possible under President Sandu because of her PAS party's victory in the 2021 parliament elections, which marked the first time in the country's history that both the presidency and the parliament were occupied by pro-European political forces. But an underwhelming show of support for EU integration and President Sandu in the two Oct. 20 votes could fuel concern and disenchantment among pro-European voters toward Sandu's PAS party, which already appears likely to lose seats to a combination of other pro-European parties and pro-Russian political forces in the 2025 parliamentary election. If this leads to further infighting among pro-European political forces, the election could yield a more fragmented parliament that forces pro-European parties to govern through a more contentious multi-party coalition, or even through an unstable minority government — either of which would risk an early parliamentary election and dampen confidence in reforms needed for EU integration. But perhaps most consequentially, there is a chance pro-Russian forces win enough seats to form their own majority in 2025, which would immediately pause Moldova's European integration. While still relatively unlikely, any of these destabilizing outcomes would risk plunging Moldova into a vicious cycle of political turmoil and reduced foreign investment, which could in turn increase internal pressure on the European Union to redirect the bloc's limited resources toward countries with stronger membership prospects.

Moldova's backsliding toward Russian influence would mark a painful setback for the European Union, which has invested significant monetary resources in getting the country on a pro-European course. This could, in turn, harm Ukraine's prospects for EU accession by demoralizing Brussels and making EU leaders wary of exorbitant spending on enlargement that could still result in failure, given Russia's still strong influence over Ukraine and even the European Union itself via Russian sympathizer member states like Hungary.