Official results have not been released yet, and may vary from results reported here, but it looks like Moldava may be the next European country to walk away from alliance with Moscow and align with the EU.
http://online.wsj.com/...
Opposition parties in the ex-Soviet nation of Moldova won enough votes to defeat the ruling Communists in elections Wednesday, according to exit polls, in a major potential upset that could have lasting effects in a country torn between East and West.
The four opposition parties won 53.9% of the vote, according to an exit poll of Moldova's Institute for Public Politics, against 41.7% for the Communist Party. If the mainly pro-European opposition can unite to form a government, that should give it some 56 seats in the Moldovan parliament, against 45 for the Communists.
But:
Mr. Lupan cautioned, however, that there were again widespread reports of ballot fraud, indicating that the final results might not be as favorable to the opposition as the exit polls. The election is being monitored by some 3,000 observers. The exit poll had a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.
The context is that this election was a redoing of the parliamentary elections Moldova conducted in April. As some of you may remember, these were marred by reports of large scale crude vote fraud in favor of the ruling party, the Communists. Partisan poll workers reportedly marked blank ballots for the Communist party candidates and cast them for many tens of thousands of Moldovans known by the government to be out of the country. It was so crudely done that outside observers and many Moldovans found the official outcome (50% of the vote for the Communists, winning 60 of 101 seats) to be obviously fraudulent.
This purported election result was followed by protest marches in Chisinau (aka Kishinev) of students and young people at the Moldovan parliament building. Elements of the crowd broke into the building and looted or set parts of it on fire. (These are thought to have been either opportunistic criminal folk or government provocateurs, probably both together.) A harsh Soviet Bloc type secret police crackdown on known protesters and protest leaders followed, along with a propaganda campaign against them.
The opposition parties held together and used their 41 seats to block the election of the Communist nominee for President of Moldova in the parliament. 61 votes of 101 were needed, and the nominee failed by that one vote. The combination of political failure and need for a functional government (Moldova is hard-hit by the recession in Europe) led to the decision to redo the elections.
Moldova is a small, landlocked country of about 250 by under 100 km in size and has about 4.1 million inhabitants. (A bit smaller then New Jersey and with half the population.) It has little competitive industry and is considered the poorest country in Europe; many of its workers work abroad in EU countries. It lies between Romania and Ukraine and 80% of the population is ethnic Romanian. A sliver of the country termed "Trans-Dniester" is separatist and contains substantial ethnic Russian population and 500 Russian troops. It's a result of Russian colonies planted after WW2 by Stalin.
The four opposition parties have promised to unite against the Communists in the Moldovan parliament and, if possible, institute policies that will shift Moldova from allegiance to Moscow to alignment with the EU. It is quite possible that this election will not be sufficient to do this, indeed the Communists may yet carry the day. However, the sense is that even if that is so, the direction of the country toward the EU and modernization is clear.
I wish all Moldovans well whatever happens. But I feel this is a major step in the development and maturation of democracy there, and admirable and reason to hope for a better future.