Hoping to end to an argument that has dragged on since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moldovans began voting on Sunday to decide whether to enshrine in their Constitution an “irreversible” commitment to leave Russia’s orbit of influence and one day join the European Union.
Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Europe, is also holding a presidential election that includes the pro-Western incumbent, Maia Sandu, and 10 other candidates, many of whom favor closer relations with Russia.
An independent state next to Ukraine that emerged from the ruins of Soviet power in 1991, Moldova has been tugged between East and West for decades, swerving between leaders who want to align with Russia and others, like Ms. Sandu, whose government in June began membership negotiations with the European Union.
Entry into the bloc is still many years away, but it has been accelerated by alarm in Western capitals over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, and a new determination to prevent Moscow from advancing into other former Soviet territories.
Three Baltic States that were once part of the Soviet empire — Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia — were admitted into the European Union and NATO 20 years ago, a shift that has anchored them firmly in the West and has helped curb Russian ambitions to return them to rule by Moscow.
In response to the war in Ukraine, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, recommended in June 2022 that Moldova and Ukraine be granted “candidate status,” the first formal step in a process that normally lasts longer than a decade.
Opinion polls put Ms. Sandu, reviled by Moscow but championed by Washington and Brussels, far ahead of her rivals in the presidential race. The only question is whether on Sunday she will secure the majority of votes needed to avoid a runoff.
The referendum, however, is more uncertain, mainly because at least a third of all people on electoral rolls must cast ballots for the result to be valid. That could be a challenge given that, according to Nicolae Panfil, a program director at Promo-LEX, a group that monitors elections, about one million of the 3.3 million people listed as voters are no longer in the country: They have either moved abroad for work or died.
Moldovans outside the country, who are generally younger and more pro-European, will be able to vote at embassies and polling stations in the countries where they live.
Mr. Panfil said the constitutional referendum should meet the voter threshold given the high turnout in four previous referendums, all but one of which passed. But, he added, clearing that bar will require Moldovans living abroad to cast ballots in large numbers, which they have done in the past.
A yes vote in the referendum, Mr. Panfil said, would have important, long-term consequences. “It is not just an opinion poll,” he said, but a binding mandate for constitutional change to moor the country in the West.
An opinion poll released on Friday by Watchdog, a research group, found that 55 percent of those surveyed would vote yes to enshrining E.U. membership as Moldova’s “strategic objective” and the “irreversibility” of the country’s “European course.”
More than a third, however, said they opposed this, and about the same proportion favored joining the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-led bloc comprising Russia, Belarus and three other former Soviet republics.
The survey results suggested that while a majority of Moldovans favor integration with the West, a significant pool of voters in a country sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania, a member of NATO and the European Union, still look to Russia. These include residents of largely Russian-speaking areas in the north near Ukraine and older Romanian-speakers who remember Soviet rule as a time of economic and political stability.
Natalia Morari, an estranged former ally of Ms. Sandu who is running against her for the presidency, dismissed the referendum as a “political ploy” to gin up support for Ms. Sandu in the presidential race. She said it would do nothing to advance Moldova’s European aspirations and would have to be repeated once negotiations with Brussels are completed. “This referendum is not about real European integration and is just political technology,” she said.
The referendum is still being closely watched by Moscow, Brussels and Washington, all of which have sought to sway the outcome.
The United States and the European Union have offered economic support, including a package worth about $2 billion announced during a recent visit to Moldova by Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.
Russia has deployed less transparent methods in its own efforts to influence voting, focused on mobilizing hostility toward Ms. Sandu and the West among the substantial minority of the population that sees Moscow as a more reliable partner.
These have included furtive cash transfers to pay anti-E.U. activists by Ilan Shor, a fugitive convicted fraudster from Moldova sheltering in Moscow. Officials have also described an enormous campaign of disinformation aimed at stoking fear of war if the referendum passes and spreading false claims that Brussels wants to brainwash Moldovan children into becoming gay or transgender.
Mr. Shor, in a message from Moscow on X, the only major social media platform from which he has not been ejected, called on all those “who care about Moldova and the future of your children” to vote for any candidate other than Ms. Sandu and to “say NO to criminal amendments of our constitution, NO to the EU and NO to war.” The vote, he warned, “is our last chance!”
“Russia is working actively to undermine Moldova’s election and its European integration,” the U.S. National Security Council spokesman, John F. Kirby, said on Wednesday. He added that “in the last several months, Moscow has dedicated millions of dollars to influencing Moldova’s presidential election.” A spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, says Moscow “categorically rejects” accusations of Russian meddling in Moldova.
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