Ahead of the poll, the pro-Western government has banned several opposition parties, with critics accusing it of foul play
Moldova, a small former Soviet republic sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, heads to the polls on Sunday in a parliamentary contest billed as a turning point in its history.
Officials in Chisinau and Brussels present it as a democratic milestone, while the opposition contends the script has been pre-written.
The race pits President Maia Sandu’s pro-EU Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) against the Patriotic Electoral Bloc (BEP), which is campaigning for Moldova’s constitutional neutrality.
Sandu, first elected in 2020 and narrowly re-elected in 2024, has faced recurring claims of presiding over electoral irregularities. Opposition groups insist that decisive votes last year came from Moldovans living in EU countries. At the same time, Moscow accused Chisinau of disenfranchising citizens living in Russia, where only a handful of polling stations were opened compared with hundreds across Western Europe.
On Friday, the Central Election Commission barred two more opposition parties – Greater Moldova and Heart of Moldova – accusing them of taking undeclared foreign funds and violating campaign rules. They join a growing list: the Victory Bloc was deregistered earlier in 2025, and the SOR Party was dissolved by the Constitutional Court in June 2023.
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