CHISINAU — Incumbent Ion Ceban has been reelected as mayor of Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, preliminary results showed on November 6, in a potential setback for pro-Western President Maia Sandu’s ruling Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) as the government presses ahead with reforms to advance the country’s candidacy to join the European Union and leave Moscow’s orbit.
Ceban, a former member of the Moscow-friendly Socialist Party of ex-President Igor Dodon, won 50.62 percent of the vote, while his PAS opponent, Lilian Carp, garnered 28.23 percent, election authorities announced after all votes from the capital’s 305 polling stations were counted.
Ceban earlier this year registered a new party, the National Alternative Movement (MAN), which he said is pursuing a Western-style social-democratic ideology.
Ceban’s MAN will also control the capital’s city council, results showed.
More than 1.14 million people — or about 41 percent of registered voters — cast ballots in Moldova’s municipal elections, surpassing the required 25 percent in most areas, in a vote marked by accusations of Russian meddling in the former Soviet republic.
More than 41 percent of voters had cast ballots in the capital, Chisinau, the Central Election Commission said.
Moldova is a landlocked country of 3.4 million sandwiched between EU and NATO member Romania and Ukraine and is one of Europe’s poorest countries. It was awarded EU candidate status together with Ukraine in June last year.
Dozens of parties, including the pro-Russian Revival party linked to fugitive businessman Ilan Shor, who has been accused by Chisinau and the West of attempting to destabilize Moldova, took part in the race to elect some 12,000 officials.
The PAS said it came first in 19 out of Moldova’s 32 counties in the first round and gained a total of 240 mayorships, but in many of them it will have to engage in negotiations with other parties for the control of local councils.
In Moldova’s second-largest city, Balti, a…
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