Moldova’s European Referendum Inconclusive, Presidency at Risk (Part One)

Executive Summary:

• The Moldovan government has combined its presidential election with a constitutional referendum to enshrine Moldova’s goal to join the European Union. The referendum on October 20 was inconclusive and current President Maia Sandu must face the runner-up, Alexander Stoianoglo, in a second round.
• Stoianoglo is a fellow traveler of the Russia-oriented Socialist Party under former President Igor Dodon. Stoianoglo expects to collect the votes of minor Russophile candidates who dropped out in the first round. 
• The referendum’s geographical breakdown shows the “No” vote prevailing in the north and south of the country while the “Yes” vote prevails in the center. The referendum was defeated within the country but was highly successful among the Moldovan diaspora.

Moldova held the first round of its quadrennial presidential election on October 20, concurrently with a referendum to enshrine the goal of joining the European Union into Moldova’s constitution. Both votes fell short of the Moldovan leadership’s expectations. The pro-Western head of state, Maia Sandu, seemed set for a first-round win in pre-election polls but has been forced into a runoff. The referendum produced what amounts to a tie. Russian psychological warfare through local proxies and some covert vote-buying—the actual extent of which is yet to be determined—contributed to these twin setbacks.

President Sandu will face Alexander Stoianoglo, the candidate of the Russia-friendly Socialist Party, in the November 3 runoff. Sandu received 42.5 percent and Stoianoglo 26 percent of the votes cast in the first round, with nine minor candidates also running. Five of these, ranging from pro-Russia to “balanced” or gray-zone figures, garnered at least 25 percent of the votes in the first round between them. The other four minor candidates, pro-European but mostly critical toward President Sandu, received about five or six percent of the first-round votes between them (Moldpres, October 22).

Chisinau barred the pro-Russia bloc under Moscow-based tycoon Ilan Shor from the presidential election and the referendum. Shor’s bloc resorts to militant strategies and covert activity. The Socialists under former president Igor Dodon play by formal rules of the political game while acting in Russia’s interest. Shor’s bloc and the Socialists compete for overlapping segments of Russophile and ambivalent voters. Chisinau insiders assess that Russia’s presidential administration controls the Socialists on a long leash while the Federal Security Service (FSB) operates Shor’s bloc on a tighter one (see EDM, April 25, 29).

The unaffiliated Stoianoglo was only recently recruited as a fellow traveler of the Socialist Party by Dodon. Stoianoglo, a former state prosecutor, is perceived as Russophile due to his Gagauz ethnicity and current partnership with the Socialists. His own longtime track record and current campaign rhetoric show Stoianoglo predisposed to a “balanced” gray-zone policy for Moldova between Russia and the West. This is the kind of policy that Dodon has long preached but never practiced. Either way, a President Stoianoglo would be apt to derail Moldova’s current Western trajectory, veering instead toward ambiguity and duplicity. He is a Trojan Horse candidate in that sense. Going into the runoff, Stoianoglo looks well placed to collect most votes dispersed among minor candidates in the first round. For her part, Sandu needs a maximum mobilization of Moldovan diaspora voters in the West to win the runoff convincingly.

In the referendum, voters were asked: “Do you support amending the constitution with a view to Moldova joining the European Union?” (Moldpres, October 20). This referendum was not about accession to the European Union (a multi-year prospect) but rather about committing Moldova to that goal. It was an internal conversation among Moldova’s citizens, not a conversation between Moldova and the European Union as would be the case in an accession referendum down the road. How many voters understood this distinction is unclear. The proposed constitutional amendments were printed in full on the referendum ballot, separately from the presidential election ballot.

The referendum’s net outcome amounted to a tie: 50.35 percent “Yes” versus 49.65 percent “No.” This count, however, does not include the voters who heeded the Socialist Party’s call to boycott the constitutional referendum. These voters cast their presidential election ballots but refused to pick up the referendum ballot. Thus, 3.7 percent of those who voted for a presidential candidate boycotted the referendum vote, according to the Moldovan Central Electoral Commission’s final tabulation (Pv.cec.md, accessed October 24). Adding the boycotters to the naysayers would lift the negative vote in the referendum to nearly 52 percent of the voters who turned out. The overall turnout was 44 percent of Moldova’s eligible voters (Moldpres, Ziarul National, October 22; Pv.cec.md, accessed October 24).

While the Socialists and Stoianoglo called for boycotting the “unlawful” referendum, Ilan Shor’s organization called for an outright “No” vote. Tenfold the number of abstainers heeded this call. The Communist Party also called for voting “No.” As the Communist leader, former head of state Vladimir Voronin, remarked, the “traitor” Dodon’s boycott strategy yielded a tie instead of an outright opposition victory (Moldavskie Vedomosti, October 22).

The referendum would seem to confirm a widespread view of Moldova as a polarized society, torn between pro-Western (including pro-Romanian) and Russia-friendly tendencies, with a deep chasm between them. The geographical breakdown of votes in this referendum shows, however, a more nuanced picture of Moldova’s political fractures.

In government-controlled territory, the “No” vote prevailed in 24 administrative districts and the city of Balti (the second-largest city under government control). The “Yes” vote prevailed in seven administrative districts and the capital, Chisinau. The electoral map shows (more starkly this time than in previous elections) two large, almost compact “No” areas in the north and the south, sandwiching a “Yes” area in the middle of the country. This central area is the smallest but the most populous due to Chisinau’s location. As is usual in Moldovan elections, a trickle of Transnistrian residents crossed into government-controlled territory to cast ballots there, predominantly for Stoianoglu and against the EU membership goal (RIA Novosti, October 21; Newsmaker, October 25).

Overall, in Moldova’s government-controlled territory, 45.6 percent voted “Yes,” thus defeating the referendum within the country. Moldovan voters abroad (almost all in Western countries), however, voted “Yes” with 77 percent of the votes cast, almost compensating for the in-country shortfall (Pv.cec.md, accessed October 24). The diaspora thus made a balanced net outcome possible for this referendum.

Calling this referendum was an unnecessary and risk-fraught move. A referendum can crown a country’s accession to the European Union at the end of the process but is not required even then. No candidate country has held a referendum at the start of the accession process and the European Union had not asked Chisinau to call a referendum. This referendum caused some eyebrows to discreetly raise in Brussels. Moldovan decision-makers opted to combine the ordinary presidential election with this extraordinary referendum to increase President Sandu’s re-election chances in the first round of voting. As opinion polls showed support for joining the European Union well above 50 percent, juxtaposed with considerably lower ratings for President Sandu and the governing Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), the referendum was expected to lift all boats.

Above and beyond current politics, the constitutional amendments submitted to the referendum look into the future. They are designed, first, to render Moldova’s EU membership candidacy legally binding to subsequent governments. Second, it will enable the Moldovan parliament to ratify European Union treaties by organic laws instead of constitutional laws, i.e., by a majority of three-fifths instead of two-thirds. PAS holds a three-fifths majority in the current parliament, which is unprecedented for a Moldovan pro-Western party. This will be difficult to muster again in subsequent parliaments. 

The referendum’s inconclusive outcome cannot be termed successful even in arithmetic terms, let alone politically. The Moldovan government, Brussels, and the other Western partners of Moldova, however, publicly interpret it as a remarkable political success. This is a matter of political necessity. Any other interpretation on their part would compromise President Sandu’s chances of reelection in the runoff. Given her pivotal role in orienting the country westwards, Sandu’s defeat in the runoff would amount to Russia winning Moldova’s presidential election.