Moldovan President Maia Sandu’s Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) got 52.74% of votes in the country’s snap parliamentary elections on July 11, with 99.95% of ballots counted.
The majority will allow Sandu and her party to pursue their reformist policies in spite of opposition from their main rival, the Electoral Bloc of Communists and Socialists (BeCS) led by Kremlin-backed former President Igor Dodon.
BeCS got the second-largest share of votes — 27.22%, the party’s weakest showing in contemporary Moldovan history. The Sor Party took third place with 5.75% of the vote.
The Renato Usatii Electoral Bloc (BERU) and the Dignity and Honesty Platform (DA) got less than 5% of the vote.
After casting her vote, Sandu told reporters she will discuss the formation of a new government once the election results are recognized, saying she “voted for an honest parliament to work with, for a parliament that will appoint honest people, competent people.”
Seeking to relaunch bilateral relations, Sandu visited Ukraine in January 2021, just two weeks after taking office, making it her first foreign trip as president.
Under her predecessor Dodon, bilateral relations between Ukraine and Moldova stalled due to Dodon’s support for Russia’s annexation of Crimea on his 2016 campaign trail.
After four years without official meetings between the countries’ leaders, Sandu’s support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty has signaled a thaw between the two countries.
Both Ukraine and Moldova have territories illegally occupied by Russia — Transnistria has been occupied since 1992 and Crimea and parts of Donbas since 2014.
