Last year, a referendum on EU membership narrowly passed and liberal President Maia Sandu secured a second term in office despite votes marred by allegations of Kremlin election meddling. In both cases, ballots from the hundreds of thousands of Moldovans living abroad — many in EU countries — were critical in swinging the result.
Dorina Baltag, a researcher at the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs and co-founder of diaspora group Noroc Olanda, said their votes would again be “of critical importance, both numerically and symbolically.”
“Over the past decade, the diaspora has consolidated itself as one of the most consistent pro-European constituencies, with electoral mobilization that often tips the balance in closely contested races,” she said.
However, the diaspora has also faced a wave of hybrid efforts to sway their votes or encourage them to stay home. More than 900 accounts have been identified working as part of a coordinated effort, spreading AI-generated disinformation linked to Russia.
According to Siegfried Mureșan, the Romanian MEP who chairs the European Parliament’s delegation to Moldova, “this is the last chance for Russia to affect Moldova’s EU integration path. Russia knows it. This is one of the reasons why they are so heavily invested there.”
This article is being updated.
