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00:00Let's now move to the situation in Moldova. People there voting by a wafer-thin majority
00:06in favor of securing the country's path towards membership of the European Union.
00:11This followed a ballot that nearly caused a major setback for the pro-Western president,
00:15Maia Sandu, who's accusing criminal groups of trying to undermine the vote. Let's bring in
00:20our correspondent, Maria Gert-Nikolescu, who's in the capital of Moldova, Cisnau. Maria, great to
00:26see you. Give us the latest there on this result, which turned out to be a lot closer
00:32than many would have predicted. A very tight vote indeed. The referendum passed with just
00:3950.3% of yes votes. Less than 12,000 ballots made the difference here. The Moldovan diaspora
00:47massively voted in favor of the referendum with over 75% of yes votes, which helped tip the balance
00:56and ultimately secure a victory for the pro-European camp. This, however, shows how divided
01:03the country remains regarding the European Union, and Moldovan authorities are saying that this
01:10tight result could also be partially linked, at least, to foreign interference and voter corruption.
01:18Earlier today, Maia Sandu said that 300,000 votes had been bought. She also spoke of foreign
01:24interference and on an attack on Moldova's democracy. In October, prosecutors had already
01:31revealed that 15 million euros were spent through Russian banks in an electoral corruption scheme.
01:38On Monday, the Kremlin, however, asked for proof for what it called grave accusations.
01:44But the political battle is not over yet here in Moldova. In two weeks,
01:49we'll see the second round of the presidential elections and current president Maia Sandu will
01:56face the socialist candidate Alexander Stoyanoglou. So, in many ways, Maria,
02:01is the issue of the EU very much a kind of, if you like, a judgment of Sandu and her leadership?
02:09Well, she's made European integration the main topic of her mandate, but also of her
02:14re-election campaign. So, there are very high chances that in the second round of
02:19the presidential election, those who have voted yes in the EU referendum will also vote
02:24in favor of Maia Sandu. This is also one of the arguments of the opposition parties and candidates
02:32saying that she's used the referendum to basically manipulate voters into re-electing her. But
02:40her response to that is that she actually needs this legitimacy. She needs to show that
02:46the population in Moldova is in favor of EU integration so that she can move on with
02:51negotiations in Brussels. Negotiations have already started earlier this year,
02:56and she's very much intent, now that the referendum has passed, on continuing these negotiations.
03:02The Moldovan EU aspirations will also be enshrined into the constitution,
03:07which will make it more difficult for potential future governments to derail it from this path.
03:16We'll have to see how things play out politically. She's likely to face continuous political
03:24opposition for the EU integration, and we'll see that Russian interference is also expected
03:31to continue as elections are planned next year as well, parliamentary elections.
03:37Indeed, President Sandu not mincing her words in saying that she believes that Russia is
03:44responsible for that. I wonder just quickly, Maria, can you tell us about the sort of the
03:48feeling among the people? You know, you're there, you talk to people, you listen to what they're
03:53saying. How do they feel about this? It strikes from the outside, it seems like the country is
04:00really split. Yes, the results of the referendum have shown how split and divided the country is
04:08on this issue surrounding EU integration. For those who were in favour of EU integration,
04:14well, the victory is difficult to be celebrated in full swing, because they were expecting,
04:20obviously, a much more favourable result for the referendum. Maya Sandu's opponents, however,
04:27are celebrating a victory because they think that this tight result shows how little backing
04:35she actually has for EU integration. But the second round of the presidential election will
04:41give us further information on what the people in Moldova actually want. And let's not forget
04:46that this comes amid Russian interference in Moldova's politics. So we'll also have to see
04:55investigations coming out on this topic as we move forward. Maria Niculescu, please keep us
05:01across all developments. Great speaking to you. Thank you very much indeed, Maria,
05:05for joining us. Let's broaden our analysis and bring in now Clara Voluntiru, who's from the
05:12German Marshall Fund of the United States, joining us from Bucharest, Romania. Clara,
05:16thanks for being with us. We've heard from our correspondent about President Sandu talking about
05:22votes being bought, some 300,000 votes being bought. Now, would 300,000 votes sway the
05:28election or not? I don't know. But the very fact that that is going on is alarming, isn't it?
05:36Of course it is. And clientelistic interference into elections has been a decades, if not
05:42centuries old phenomenon that has distorted electoral outcomes and electoral integrity,
05:47not just in the Republic of Moldova, but all across the eastern periphery of the European
05:52Union and inside the European Union, has been a very important battle for all of us fighting in
05:58the belief of democratic values. Russian interference has indeed played many tactics
06:05in distorting electoral processes, from propaganda on social networks to this very
06:12human form of peer-to-peer clientelistic networks. So the 300,000 votes that were bought,
06:20or let's say manipulated, are essentially a network of clientelistic distribution of money
06:27coming in from Shor, who is residing outside of the Republic of Moldova in the Russian
06:34territory. And so it is a very novel, entrepreneurial even, we might say,
06:39form of clientelistic interference into the electoral process. But with that being said,
06:46I don't think that was a critical mass in these elections. That target electorate was already
06:53pro-Russian. So we need to understand other variables in play in order to understand where
06:59these elections are heading. So it may not have been as important as perhaps I'm thinking when
07:04I'm hearing those words coming from our correspondent. I'm also thinking about
07:07what Elon Musk is doing in the United States in terms of paying people to vote for Donald Trump.
07:12It seems to me that comes from the same stable. It may be a different rider of the horse in some
07:17way, shape or form. But let's not talk about that. Let's get back to Moldova and the important issue
07:22at hand here, because Maya Sandu wants to make membership of the EU very much part and parcel
07:27of what Moldova does going forward. Is that now at risk? No, I think the tactical option to put
07:36forward a referendum now was the right call, given that the interferences and popular
07:43disenchantment might still grow. I refer to popular disenchantment because we have 42 percent of the
07:51population in Moldova still on the fence, still wanting good relations with the European Union
07:57and good relations with Russia, mostly out of fear of aggression. And that population, that
08:04majority in the middle, can be very easily swayed by contextual factors. The past government is
08:11footing the bill for a series of unpopular measures and contextual factors, from rising
08:17energy bills, energy prices because of the war in Ukraine, to, let's say, a scale down of social
08:24programs given the more pro-liberal, pro-market approach of the past government. I think the one
08:31mistake that this referendum or the president has done in calling up this referendum now was that
08:37there wasn't a broader coalition of political forces supporting the EU agenda. And it ended up
08:43being a sole proponent of the European agenda in her person and her party. And she needs more
08:52allies. And I think going into the next parliamentary elections next year, that will be the
08:58main challenge, to find coalition partners to continue to rule in a pro-European, pro-Western
09:05mandate. Clara Voluntiru of the German Marshal Fund of the United States, thank you for sharing
09:11your analysis with us here on France 24. We really appreciate your time. Thank you very much indeed.