Nov. 4, 2024, 12:11 p.m.
Incumbent President Sandu wins election in Moldova
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The President of Moldova votes in the elections. Photo: Maia Sandu/Facebook
On November 3, Moldovan citizens voted in the second round of the presidential election, which pitted incumbent President Maia Sandu against former Prosecutor General Alexandru Stoianoglo.
After counting the votes , the Central Election Commission of Moldova announced that Maia Sandu had won. She was supported by 930,512 Moldovan citizens - 55.41% of those who took part in the elections, and her competitor - 748,781 citizens, or 44.59%.
Maia Sandu entered Moldovan politics in 2012, having previously worked as an advisor to the World Bank's executive director and lived in Washington, DC. She served as Minister of Education for two years, headed the Moldovan government for almost six months in 2019, and won the presidential election in 2020, beating pro-Russian President Igor Dodon in the second round. Sandu's reputation as a pro-Western politician has only strengthened after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Read also: Elections in Moldova: Will the neighbors overcome Russian pressure and outright vote buying?
Alexandru Stoianoglo has worked his way up from an assistant prosecutor in Chisinau to the founder and first head of the Gagauz prosecutor's office, and then to the Deputy Prosecutor General of Moldova, was a member of the Moldovan parliament for two convocations, and even served as deputy speaker in 2009-2010. In addition, he twice ran for the position of bashkan (head) of Gagauzia, both times without success.
In the first round of elections, 42.49% of voters who came to the polls voted for Maia Sandu, and 25.95% for Alexandru Stoianoglo. The turnout in the first round of the presidential election exceeded 51.4%, or more than 1 million 560 thousand votes.
According to the Moldovan edition of NewsMaker, Maia Sandu won the presidential election in Moldova, becoming the first head of state in the country's history to be re-elected for a second term in direct elections. Sandu's final margin of victory was about 11%.
The publication notes that, unlike in 2020, she managed to do this only thanks to the votes of the Moldovan diaspora.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, representatives of the European Union, and President of Georgia Salome Zurabishvili congratulated Maia Sandu on her election victory.
