On September 28, 2025 some 3,3 million voters had the right to vote in the 2025 Moldovan parliamentary election. Over 800,000 of those voters live abroad. Around three-quarters of the voters living in the diaspora who went to the polls opted for the pro-European PAS (Partidul Acțiune și Solidaritate). PAS is the party of President Maia Sandu, a Harvard-educated former World Bank official. PAS was running on a pro-European, anti-Russian and anti-corruption agenda.
The electoral threshold at the national level is 5% for parties and individual organizations, 7 for electoral blocs, and 2% for independent candidates. Five parties or electoral blocs managed to enter the Moldovan parliament.
Only 52.2% of the voters went to the polls — nevertheless an increase of 3.8 pp in comparison with the 2021 Moldovan parliamentary election. In comparison with 2021, President Maia Sandu’s pro-European PAS lost 2.6 pp and ended up with 50.2% of the vote. Led by the party leader Igor Grosu, PAS won an absolute majority of 55 seats (-8 seats) in the 101 single chamber parliament.
In the 2025 Moldovan parliamentary election, the so-called Patriotic Electoral Bloc, in fact a pro-Russian alliance formed by the Socialist, the Communist and the Heart and Future of Moldova parties, ended up with 24.17% of the vote (-3 pp) and 26 seats (-6 seats. The alliance is led by Moldova’s former president Igor Dodon (2016-2020). Dodon was shortly arrested in 2022 on charges of passive corruption, illegal financing of a political party by a criminal organization, illicit enrichment, and high treason against Moldova through receiving funds from the fugitive Moldovan oligarch and politician Vladimir Plahotniuc, a key figure in the 2014-15 Moldovan bank fraud scandal, in which $1 billion “disappeared” in poverty-stricken Moldova. Plahotniuc was arrested in Greece in July 2025 as he attempted to travel to Dubai. He was extradited from Greece to Moldova in September 2025, just before the 2025 parliamentary election, which helped PAS running on an anti-corruption agenda.
The election result can be considered a success given the massive disinformation and/or vote buying campaign by Putin’s Russia, George Simion’s populist, far-right Romanian Alliance for the Union of Romanians (Alianța pentru Unirea Românilor, AUR) and the pro-Russian Moldovan and Israeli oligarch Ilan Shor, another key figure in the 2014-15 Moldovan bank fraud scandal. In addition, through the part of the Orthodox church oriented towards Moscow, Putin has had some success influencing peasants and other poor countryside folk in rural Moldova.
Since Putin’s 2022 escalation of the war against Ukraine, Moldova has been hit by high inflation, notably due to higher energy prices, a result of the country’s decoupling from energy imports from Russia. The high inflation has not helped Maia Sandu during her reelection campaig (runoff presidential election won on November 3, 2024 with 55.3% against 44.7% for Alexandr Stoianoglo, PSRM) and has hit the PAS chances in the Moldovan parliamentary election on September 28, 2025.
President Sandu’s greatest success was to get Moldova on a fast-track path to European Union membership negociations and, on October 20, 2024 to enshrine her pro-EU course in the constitution; the referendum was only narrowly approved, with 50.5% in favor, once again due to massive vote buying by Russia and Putin’s allies, which cost probably way over $100 million.
In the 2025 Moldovan parliamentary election, the Alternative Bloc ended up with 7.96% and 8 seats. The Alternative Bloc is a political alliance founded in 2025 by incumbent Mayor of Moldova’s capital Chișinău, Ion Ceban, 2024 presidential candidate Alexandr Stoianoglo, former Prime Minister Ion Chicu and former MP Mark Tkachuk. In 2023 Ion Ceban was reelected mayor of Chișinău, handily defeating the PAS candidate Lilian Carp 50.6% to 28.2%. The Alternative Bloc is anti-PAS.
Ion Ceban was affiliated with pro-Russian left-wing parties (PCRM, PSRM) but, beginning in 2022, he adopted a pro-European rhetoric. Critical observers have come to the conclusion that his Alternative Bloc benefited from support by Putin’s Russia. He is even linked to the Russian secret service FSB. In 2019, the FSB agent Yuri Gudilin was part of Ion Ceban’s Chișinău City Hall election team. In July 2025, Romania banned Ion Ceban, the mayor of neighbour from entering the country in a move that extends to the entire Schengen visa-free travel area, without stating the reasons for the ban.
The fourth biggest party or bloc to enter the Moldovan parliament in 2025 was Our Party (Partidul Nostru, PN), a populist, left-wing, anti-PAS, pro-Russian and anti-EU party led by Renato Usatîi, a businessman and former mayor of Moldova’s third biggest city Bălți. Our Party won 6.2% (+2.1 pp) and entered parliament with 6 seats.
The fifth and smallest party or bloc to enter parliament in 2025 was the Democracy at Home Party (Partidul Democrația Acasă, DA aka PPDA) with 5.6% (+4.2 pp) and 6 seats. DA wants to unite Moldova with Romania. The party got support, notably on social media, from the Romanian far-right.
In July 2025, European Union President von der Leyen had visited Chișinău with a €1.8 billion EU investment package in her pocket. Already in the past, the EU has sent money for infrastructure projects. Putin is only offering bribes, corruption and, for the future, possibly repression and destruction, as in Ukraine.
Russian propaganda painted a very different picture: the EU would drag Moldova into a war with Russia. In reality, Putin is the only one who has started wars in the region and who is escalating them.
On September 29, 2025 the Kremlin spokesman tried to score propanda points when he told reporters that Moldova had operated 5 voting stations in Belgium, 24 in Britain and 22 in the United States, but only 2 in Russia; in comparison, in 2021, there were 21 polling stations in Russia. Dmitri S. Peskov said: “Hundreds of thousands of Moldovans were deprived of the opportunity to vote in the Russian Federation due to the fact that only two polling stations were open to them.” In reality, in 2021, only roughly 6,000 Moldovans voted in Russia. 2 polling stations with 10,000 ballots in Russia for Moldovans sound suddenly so unreasonable. In any case, more polling stations would not have shifted the election result substanially. And Russia would have tried to rig the election in Russian controlled areas.
Last but not least, let’s not forget that, since 1992, Russia has already a foot in Moldova: Transnistria, officially known as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), is a landlocked breakaway territory with some 370,000 inhabitants. It is de facto occupied by roughly 1,500 Russian soldiers. Transnistria is only recognised as independent by Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two other territories occupied by Russia. Internationally, Transnistria is legally considered a part of Moldova. Because of security concerns, Moldova closed and relocated five voting stations in Transnistria, according a New York Times report. According to Le Monde, only 50% of voters in largely Russian speaking Transnistria voted for the Patriotic Electoral Bloc, PAS got 30%, the Alternative roughly 9%.
In short, over the past years, Putin’s Russia has spent hundreds of millions of euros for propaganda, fake news, misinformation and vote buying in Moldova. This time, the part of the Moldovan society oriented towards the European Union, democracy, the rule of law and fighting corruption has kept the upper hand.
In addition, read our 2019 article based on a talk with the PAS (back then ACUM alliance) politician Dumitru Alaiba about the reforms in Moldova.
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Maia Sandu at the summit of the European People’s Party (EPP) in June 2017 (a year before she took office as prime minister of Moldova). Photo: European People’s Party on Flickr.
Article added on October 1, 2025 at 17:00 German time.
