Moldova: moderate success for the pro-European parties

The pro-European forces beat the pro-Russian parties by a small margin in the parliamentary election on 30 November 2014 in Moldova. According to data based on the calculation of almost 99% of the ballots, the Liberal-Democratic Party (PLDM), the core of the government coalition which had governed the country since 2009 and which is led by the former prime minister Vlad Filat received 20% of the votes, while the Democratic Party (PDM) controlled by Vlad Plahotniuc, one of Moldova’s richest people, won 15.9% of the votes. It may be expected that the two parties and the pro-European Liberal Party (PL), which garnered 9.5% of the vote, will form a new government coalition whose key priority will remain Moldova’s European integration. The coalition will probably have 55 of the 101 seats in parliament. However, the degree of support for the pro-European forces is lower in comparison to the previous election, in which they won a combined 59 seats.