Incumbent mayor of Chisinau, former socialist Ion Ceban, has won the local election in the capital of the Republic of Moldova in the first round, according to partial results announced on Monday morning at 7:30 by the Central Electoral Commission, following the tallying of votes from 304 out of 305 polling stations in the city.
Current mayor Ion Ceban, who suspended his activities during the election campaign, claimed victory in the first round of the election, accusing the ruling PAS party of attempting to manipulate the vote.
“According to preliminary data, MAN [Ceban’s party] has won in Chisinau. I sincerely thank all the residents on my behalf and that of my team. There were manipulations, fraud, and many attempts to manipulate the election in favor of the ruling party. This was the longest vote count process in recent years. According to our calculations, a minimum of 51% of the votes cast in the municipality should have been for the General Mayor, and 34% for MAN in the CMC. We will publish all the minutes. We are still working at this hour, and I thank the MAN representatives who were present at the polling stations, monitoring the electoral and vote-counting process,” stated Ion Ceban on Monday morning.
Ceban, considered a close ally of Moscow and President Putin, who ran as a candidate for the National Alternative Movement, of which he is the president, was supported by 132,245 voters, accounting for 50.58% of the total citizens who exercised their voting rights in Chisinau.
In second place is the candidate from the ruling party, the Party of Action and Solidarity, Lilian Carp, who received 73,930 votes (28.27%).
In third place is the candidate from the Socialist Party of the Republic of Moldova, Adrian Albu, with 11,815 votes (4.52%), and in fourth place is Victor Chironda from the Truth and Justice Platform, with 9,989 votes (3.82%).
In Sunday’s local elections, 27 individuals ran for the mayor’s office in Chisinau.
General local elections were held in the Republic of Moldova on Sunday, where Moldovans voted to elect 898 mayors and 11,058 councilors for local level I and II councils.
The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of the Republic of Moldova reports that around 1.15 million voters participated in Sunday’s local elections, representing over 41.4% of the total number of registered voters on the electoral lists.