Runoff of presidential elections held in Moldova

Chisinau, 3 November /MOLDPRES/ - Moldova’s citizens today will elect the country’s president for the next four years. The polling stations opened at 7:00 and will close at 21:00.   

Two persons fight for the office of head of state: current President Maia Sandu, who picked up 42.49 per cent of the votes in the first round of the voting or 656,852 votes and the candidate of the Party of Socialists, Alexandr Stoianoglo, who grabbed 25.95 per cent of the ballots, getting 401,215 votes.  

The electors are expected to vote at those 2,219 polling stations, of which 1,988 opened on the territory of Moldova, of which 30 polling stations for the voters from the left bank of Dniester. Another 231 polling stations will be organized in 37 countries, of which three polling stations for those who exercised their vote by correspondence.   

For the runoff election, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) printed 3,659,696 ballot papers, of which 2,280,496 ballot papers for the polling stations from Moldova and 839,200 ballot papers for the polling stations from abroad. As many as 2,906,891 ballot papers are in the Romanian language, 746,929 ones – in the Russian language, 3,900 are in Gagauz, 870 in the Romany language, 991 in Bulgarian and 115 in the Ukrainian language.    

A number of 1,809 envelopes with ballot papers were sent for the vote by correspondence and till 31 October, 18:00, the electoral bureaus of the polling stations for the vote by correspondence from the three countries received 1,447 envelopes with ballot papers - Ottawa (Canada) – 436 envelopes, Washington (SUA) – 790 envelopes and Stockholm (Sweden) – 221 envelopes.  

The runoff election will be monitored by over 2,400 national and international observers accredited by CEC.

At the elections, the citizens will be able to vote based on one of the following acts: identity card of Moldova’s citizen, which confirms the domicile or the temporary residence of the voter on the area of the polling station; temporary identity card with the provisions on Moldova’s citizenship, the domicile or temporary residence of the holder; passport of Moldova’s citizen, including with expired validity term.

The pupils and students can vote at any polling station from the settlement where they study upon the presentation of the pupil or student card, issued by the education institution from the settlement where she/she will vote and the identity card.  

The last presidential elections were held in Moldova in November 2020.