Pro-Russian Igor Dodon is the new president of the Republic of Moldova on Sunday. Dodon has got 52.18%, while pro-European candidate Maia Sandu has got 47.82%, according to the final results delivered by the Electoral Committee in Chisinau.
Preliminary information also revealed that the turnout was over 53%.
The Socialist leader Igor Dodon declared himself winner of the presidential turnoffs, while inviting his opponent Maia Sandu to discussions, Radio Chisinau informs.
“I think all understood that we had won in this campaign. At present, when we got over the threshold of 820,000 voters we exceeded the limit of 50%. I want to thank citizens who gave me their vote and the future of this country,” Dodon stated.
“Mrs. Maia Sandu, I want to congratulate you for the very good result. But no, please, let’s calm down the spirits. We don’t need hate in the society,” he added.
The Socialist leader also appealed to calm at the end of the turnoffs, regardless of the result, amid protests related to the voting procedure especially at the polling stations set up abroad. “I am addressing to my political foe: let’s urge people to be clam regardless of the result. We don’t need challenges and destabilisation of the society. The first thing the loser of these elections should do is to urge people to be calm. And the winner should come up with a calm message,” Dodon said.
On the opposite camp, pro-European Maia Sandu slammed authorities for the way they organized the turnoffs, claiming numerous breaches on the day of the elections.
Indeed, thousands of Moldovan citizens in diaspora, in Romania or abroad, have queued to cast their vote, while the ballot papers have run short in several polling stations.
“Authorities have violated the constitutional right of the Moldovan citizes to cast their vote. We call on the Intelligence Service to probe into what happened to those 6,000 ballot papers intended to go to the polling stations in Portugal, to be sure they had not been used for electoral frauds. We also had violations in the Republic of Moldova-violence actions in polling stations, incidents when thousands of citizens from the left of Nistru had been organizedly brought to vote or vote buying,” Maia Sandu stated.
The ballot papers ran short also at the R. Moldova’s Consulate and Embassy in Bucharest. About 100 voters were allowed to cast their votes after 9 p.m. when the ballots officially closed down.
The polling station inside the Moldovan embassy in Bucharest had to be closed around 7 p.m. due to the ballot papers shortage. The voters who were still queueing were redirected to the consulate.
Soon after 9 p.m., the representatives of the consulate informed that the citizens in front of the consulate are allowed to cast their vote, but warned there were just 120 ballot papers available. Around 30 voters couldn’t cast their vote in the end.
“The ballot papers ran short at the consulate, too. At present we know that overal there had been 16,126 vots cast in 11 polling stations. We are extremely sorry that the process went this way. The ballot papers ran out at the embassy ay 7 p.m. but we did our best to redirect people to the consulate. Still, there were 30 people left without casting their vote,” said the Moldovan ambassador to Romania, Mihai Gribincea.
He added that he had asked for a double number of ballot papers after the first round of the elections but this didn’t happen.
Voting problems were encountered in other polling stations abroad. Hundreds of Moldovan citizens waiting to vote at Stratford polling station in London, protested against the impossibility to vote, signing 678 legal contests. For that reason, Maia Sandu asked for the resignation of the Foreign Minister and of Electoral Committee president.