Posted on 03/07/2005 7:07:17 PM PST by jb6
CHISINAU (AFP) - Moldova's Communist party retained its dominant position after weekend parliamentary elections that, according to final results, confirmed the former Soviet republic's pro-European turn in the past few months.
AFP Photo
AFP Slideshow: Moldova Elections
The Communists, who have recently distanced themselves from Moscow and shifted towards the West, won over 46.1 percent of Sunday's vote, the central election commission said, with all the ballots counted.
The vote is vital to the tiny republic splitting Romania -- a future European Union (news - web sites) member -- and Ukraine, as the nation's parliament decides the country's president, with a vote scheduled for this spring.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation (news - web sites) in Europe (OSCE (news - web sites)) said that mistakes were made during the parliamentary election campaigning, but that it still recognized the vote in Europe's poorest nation as fair.
"The legislative elections of March 6 were generally in compliance with most OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and other international election standards," said Kimmo Kiljunen, head of the OSCE's mission of 500 observers.
Moscow media reports said that more than 100 Russian observers who traveled to the former Soviet republic over the weekend by train were turned back by border guards, raising Russia's ire.
The centrist opposition Bloc for Democratic Moldova (BDM) secured 28.41 percent, and the nationalist Popular Christian Democratic Party (PPCD) took third place with 9.7 percent of the vote.
The results must still be confirmed and published before they are considered official.
Turnout was about 65 percent of the country's 2.3 million voters.
"We do not see any serious reasons to contest the results," said Yuri Ciocan, a member of the electoral commission. "The elections were democratic, open, with the participation of many international and local observers."
The Communists are expected to get enough support from other factions to achieve the three-fifths needed to win the presidency.
"The Communists will find the six or seven seats that they lack for the presidential majority, because the centrist bloc is very weak and was formed only for these elections," said political analyst Nicolae Chirtoaca.
Although the Communists came to power on a pro-Russian ticket, they have since done an about-face, partly because of disagreements with Moscow over its troop presence in the separatist region of Trandsdniestr, which Russia has tacitly supported since it broke away from Chisinau after a short war in 1992.
The Communists and their main rivals all declared themselves to be pro-Western, offering voters a choice between various degrees of integration.
Tensions with Moscow have risen in recent weeks, with Communist President Vladimir Voronin accusing Russia of interference and even alleging that forces in Moscow -- that he did not name -- were plotting his death.
Russia has fumed at the change in its former satellite, which was historically part of Romania, but became a Soviet constituent republic, accusing Moldova of deliberately seeking confrontation.
After the "orange revolution" in its eastern neighbor Ukraine late last year, which followed a similar non-violent movement in Georgia, all eyes turned to Moldova, with many wondering if it would become the third former Soviet republic to hold a popular revolution.
But observers dismissed such a possibility, arguing that the ruling party, which many say remains communist in name only, had been careful not to give the opposition a reason to launch the mass protests that helped bring down regimes in Georgia and Ukraine.
With a population of 4.5 million people, Moldova is one of the poorest of the former Soviet states and considered to be Europe's poorest country, with per capita gross national product barely 600 dollars (450 euros).
They are probably closer to small d democrats than the socialist that run most of west Europe.
The communists may have won here but they are a country of communist losers.
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