Moldova: Pro-Russia presidential candidate declares victory
CHISINAU, Moldova — A pro-Russia candidate has declared victory in Moldova’s presidential election, opening up a commanding lead in the former Soviet republic with nearly all the votes tallied.
Igor Dodon, who has promised to restore closer ties with Moscow and made comments in Russian immediately after the polls closed Sunday , had just over 54 per cent of the votes, with more than 98 per cent of the ballots tallied. His rival Maia Sandu, an ex-World Bank official who ran on an anti-corruption platform, had nearly 46 per cent.
“Everyone understands that I have won,” he said later in Romanian just after midnight. He thanked Sandu for waging a “tough but good fight” and said he would be a president for all Moldovans.
Dodon tapped into popular anger over corruption under the pro-European government that came to power in 2009, particularly over the approximately $1 billion that went missing from Moldovan banks before the 2014 parliamentary elections.