Moldova’s pro-Western president wins 2nd term in runoff overshadowed by Russian meddling claims

Moldova’s pro-Western president wins 2nd term in runoff overshadowed by Russian meddling claims
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Moldova’s pro-Western president wins 2nd term in runoff overshadowed by Russian meddling claims https://arab.news/mqyjc
Moldova’s pro-Western president wins 2nd term in runoff overshadowed by Russian meddling claims
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Moldova's incumbent President and presidential candidate Maia Sandu casts her ballot at a polling station during the second round of the presidential election in Chisinau, Moldova on Nov. 3, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 04 November 2024
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Moldova’s pro-Western president wins 2nd term in runoff overshadowed by Russian meddling claims

Moldova’s pro-Western president wins 2nd term in runoff overshadowed by Russian meddling claims
  • Sandu had 54.7 percent of the vote, compared to 45.3 percent for Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor general who was backed by the pro-Russia Party of Socialists
  • Turnout stood at more than 1.68 million people, with Moldova’s large diaspora casting ballots in record numbers of more than 325,000 voted, heavily in favor of Sandu in the runoff

CHISINAU, Moldova: Moldova’s pro-Western President Maia Sandu has won a second term in a pivotal presidential runoff against a Russia-friendly opponent, in a race that was overshadowed by claims of Russian interference, voter fraud, and intimidation in the European Union candidate country.
With nearly 99 percent of votes counted in the second round of the presidential election held Sunday, Sandu had 54.7 percent of the vote, according to the Central Electoral Commission, or CEC, compared to 45.3 percent for Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor general who was backed by the pro-Russia Party of Socialists.
The result will be a major relief for the pro-Western government, which strongly backed Sandu’s candidacy, and her push for closer Western ties on Moldova’s path toward the EU.
“Moldova, you are victorious! Today, dear Moldovans, you have given a lesson in democracy, worthy of being written in history books. Today, you have saved Moldova! In our choice for a dignified future, no one lost,” Sandu said after claiming victory after midnight.
But she went on to claim that her country’s vote had faced an “unprecedented attack” through alleged schemes including dirty money, vote-buying, and electoral interference “by hostile forces from outside the country” and criminal groups.
“You have shown that nothing can stand in the way of the people’s power when they choose to speak through their vote,” she added.

When polls closed locally at 9 p.m. (1900 GMT), turnout stood at more than 1.68 million people — about 54 percent of eligible voters, according to the CEC. Moldova’s large diaspora, which cast ballots in record numbers of more than 325,000 voted, heavily in favor of Sandu in the runoff.
In the first round held Oct. 20, Sandu obtained 42 percent of the ballot but failed to win an outright majority over the second place Stoianoglo. The presidential role carries significant powers in areas such as foreign policy and national security and has a four-year term.
Allegations of vote-buying and Russian interference
Moldova’s diaspora played a key role in the presidential vote and in a nationwide referendum held on Oct. 20, when a narrow majority of 50.35 percent voted to secure Moldova’s path toward EU membership. But the results of the ballots including Sunday’s vote have been overshadowed by allegations of a major vote-buying scheme and voter intimidation.
Instead of winning the overwhelming support that Sandu had hoped, the results in both races exposed Moldova’s judiciary as unable to adequately protect the democratic process.
On Sunday, Moldovan police said they had “reasonable evidence” of organized transportation of voters — illegal under the country’s electoral code — to polling stations from within the country and from overseas, and are “investigating and registering evidence in connection with air transport activities from Russia to Belarus, Azerbaijan and Turkiye.”
“Such measures are taken to protect the integrity of the electoral process and to ensure that every citizen’s vote is cast freely without undue pressure or influence,” police said.
Moldova’s foreign ministry said on Sunday afternoon that polling stations in Frankfurt, Germany, and Liverpool and Northampton in the UK had been targeted by false bomb threats, which “intended only to stop the voting process.”
Stanislav Secrieru, the president’s national security adviser, wrote on X: “We are seeing massive interference by Russia in our electoral process,” which he warned had a “high potential to distort the outcome” of the vote.
Secrieru later added that the national voter record systems were being targeted by “ongoing coordinated cyberattacks” to disrupt links between domestic polling stations and those abroad, and that cybersecurity teams were “working to counter these threats and ensure system continuity.”
Moldova’s Prime Minister Dorin Recean said that people throughout the country had received “anonymous death threats via phone calls” in what he called “an extreme attack” to scare voters in the former Soviet republic, which has a population of about 2.5 million people.
After casting her ballot in Chisinau, Sandu said “today, more than ever, we must be united, keep our peace, keep our vote, keep our independence.”
“Thieves want to buy our vote, thieves want to buy our country, but the power of the people is infinitely greater,” she told reporters.
Outside a polling station in Romania’s capital, Bucharest, 20-year-old medical student Silviana Zestrea said the runoff would be a “definitive step” toward Moldova’s future.
“People need to understand that we have to choose a true candidate that will fulfill our expectations,” she said. “Because I think even if we are a diaspora now, none of us actually wanted to leave.”
Moldovan police expose a scheme allegedly plotted by a convicted oligarch
In the wake of the two October votes, Moldovan law enforcement said that a vote-buying scheme was orchestrated by Ilan Shor, an exiled oligarch who lives in Russia and was convicted in absentia last year of fraud and money laundering. Shor denies any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors say $39 million was paid to more than 130,000 recipients through an internationally sanctioned Russian bank to voters between September and October. Anti-corruption authorities have conducted hundreds of searches and seized over $2.7 million (2.5 million euros) in cash as they attempt to crack down.
In one case in Gagauzia, an autonomous part of Moldova where only 5 percent voted in favor of the EU, a physician was detained after allegedly coercing 25 residents of a home for older adults to vote for a candidate they did not choose. Police said they obtained “conclusive evidence,” including financial transfers from the same Russian bank.
On Saturday, at a church in Comrat, the capital of Gagauzia, Father Vasilii told The Associated Press that he’s urged people to go and vote because it’s a “civic obligation” and that they do not name any candidates.
“We use the goods the country offers us — light, gas,” he said. “Whether we like what the government does or not, we must go and vote. ... The church always prays for peace.”
On Thursday, prosecutors raided a political party headquarters and said 12 people were suspected of paying voters to select a candidate in the presidential race. A criminal case was also opened in which 40 state agency employees were suspected of taking electoral bribes.
Moldova’s EU future at stake
Cristian Cantir, a Moldovan associate professor of international relations at Oakland University, told AP that whatever the outcome of the second round, it “will not deflate” geopolitical tensions. “On the contrary, I expect geopolitical polarization to be amplified by the campaign for the 2025 legislative elections.”
Moldovan law enforcement needs more resources and better-trained staff working at a faster pace to tackle voter fraud, he added, to “create an environment in which anyone tempted to either buy or sell votes knows there will be clear and fast consequences.”
Savlina Adasan, a 21-year-old economics student in Bucharest, said she voted for Sandu and cited concerns about corruption and voters uninformed about the two candidates.
“We want a European future for our country,” she said, adding that it offers “many opportunities, development for our country … and I feel like if the other candidate wins, then it means that we are going 10 steps back as a country.”
A pro-Western government has been in power in Moldova since 2021, and a parliamentary election will be held in 2025. Moldova watchers warn that next year’s vote could be Moscow’s main target.
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moldova applied to join the EU. It was granted candidate status in June of that year, and in summer 2024, Brussels agreed to start membership negotiations. The sharp westward shift irked Moscow and significantly soured relations with Chisinau.
Since then, Moldovan authorities have repeatedly accused Russia of waging a vast “hybrid war,” from sprawling disinformation campaigns to protests by pro-Russia parties to vote-buying schemes that undermine countrywide elections. Russia has denied it is meddling.
 


France returns ancient artifacts to Ethiopia

France returns ancient artifacts to Ethiopia
Updated 30 November 2024
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France returns ancient artifacts to Ethiopia

France returns ancient artifacts to Ethiopia
  • The artifacts currently stored at the French Embassy in Addis Ababa will be delivered to the Ethiopian Heritage Directorate on Tuesday

ADDIS ABABA: France on Saturday began the return of some 3,500 archeolo-gical artifacts to Ethiopia, which Paris held since the 1980s for study.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot handed over two prehistoric stone axes, bifaces, and a stone cutter to Ethiopia’s Tourism Minister Selamawit Kassa during a visit to the National Museum in Addis Ababa.
The tools are “samples of nearly 3,500 artifacts from the excavations carried out on the Melka Kunture site,” a cluster of prehistoric sites south of the capital excavated under the direction of a late French researcher, Barrot said.
France and Ethiopia hold a longstanding bilateral agreement to cooperate in archeology and paleontology.
The artifacts stored at the French Embassy in Addis Ababa will be delivered to the Ethiopian Heritage Directorate on Tuesday.
“This is a handover, not a restitution, in that these objects have never been part of French public collections,” said Laurent Serrano, culture adviser at the French Embassy.
“These artifacts, which date back between 1 and 2 million years, were found during excavations carried out over several decades at a site near the Ethiopian capital,” he added.


Concern grows over rise in fatal migrant shipwrecks in Greece

Concern grows over rise in fatal migrant shipwrecks in Greece
Updated 30 November 2024
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Concern grows over rise in fatal migrant shipwrecks in Greece

Concern grows over rise in fatal migrant shipwrecks in Greece
  • UNHCR representative: ‘Counting lives lost at sea cannot become a norm’

ATHENS: The UN refugee agency has voiced concern at a rise in deaths of migrants trying to reach Greece by sea in small boats from Turkiye, following two fatal shipwrecks this week.

The UNHCR said in a statement Friday that 17 people have died in such accidents this month, while the total so far this year is at least 45 deaths.

Some 56,000 people have illegally entered Greece since Jan. 1, mostly by sea. That’s a five-year high, and the number has already exceeded government estimates of some 50,000 arrivals by the year’s end in October.

The UNHCR representative in Greece, Maria Clara Martin, said the migrant deaths “highlight the urgent need for long-term responses and safer and credible alternatives” for people fleeing conflict, persecution, violence, or human rights violations.

“Counting lives lost at sea cannot become a norm — we should not get used to it,” she said.

The UN agency said that this week’s two fatal accidents off the eastern Aegean Sea island of Samos, which is close to the Turkish coast, saw a mother lose three of her children, while another survivor lost his wife and daughter.

Greek authorities have attributed this year’s rise in migrant arrivals to conflicts in the Middle East. 

While there’s been a surge in people attempting the long and dangerous Mediterranean Sea crossing from Libya to the southern Greek island of Crete, most migrants pay smuggling gangs to ferry them from Turkiye to the eastern Aegean islands.

On Friday, the Greek coast guard said it arrested a 17-year-old Turkish youth on suspicion of having landed 16 migrants — including three children — on the eastern island of Chios.

Tunisia and Libya have become vital departure points for migrants, often from other African countries, who risk perilous Mediterranean Sea journeys in the hopes of reaching better lives in Europe.

Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt to make the crossing. Italy, whose Lampedusa island is only 150 km from Tunisia, is often their first port of call.

In the latest incident reported on Friday, two unidentified bodies were recovered off Tunisia’s eastern coast after a migrant boat capsized, with one person still missing and 28 rescued.

The boat had set sail from Teboulba, a coastal town some 180 km south of Tunis.

In late October, the bodies of 15 people believed to be migrants were recovered by authorities in Monastir, eastern Tunisia.

And in late September, 36 would-be migrants — mainly Tunisians — were rescued off Bizerte in northern Tunisia.

Since Jan. 1, at least 103 makeshift boats have capsized, and 341 bodies have been recovered off Tunisia’s coast, according to the Interior Ministry.


Kenyan, Ugandan presidents to mediate Ethiopia-Somalia dispute

Kenyan, Ugandan presidents to mediate Ethiopia-Somalia dispute
Updated 30 November 2024
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Kenyan, Ugandan presidents to mediate Ethiopia-Somalia dispute

Kenyan, Ugandan presidents to mediate Ethiopia-Somalia dispute
  • Somaliland has struggled to gain international recognition despite governing itself and enjoying comparative peace and stability since declaring independence in 1991

NAIROBI: Kenya’s President William Ruto said on Saturday he and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni would help mediate a dispute between Ethiopia and Somalia, threatening the region’s stability.

Landlocked Ethiopia, which has thousands of troops in Somalia to fight Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents, has fallen out with the Mogadishu government over its plans to build a port in the breakaway region of Somaliland in exchange for possible recognition of its sovereignty.

Somaliland has struggled to gain international recognition despite governing itself and enjoying comparative peace and stability since declaring independence in 1991.

The spat has drawn Somalia closer to Egypt, which has quarreled with Ethiopia for years over Addis Ababa’s construction of a vast hydro dam on the Nile River, and Eritrea, another of Ethiopia’s foes.

Somaliland has struggled to gain international recognition despite governing itself and enjoying comparative peace and stability since declaring independence in 1991.

“Because the security of Somalia ... contributes significantly to the stability of our region, and the environment for investors, business people, and entrepreneurs to thrive,” he told a news conference.

Several attempts to resolve the feud in Ankara, Turkiye, failed to make a breakthrough.

Ethiopia’s government and foreign affairs spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Somalia’s foreign minister could not immediately be reached by Reuters.

The government of Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubbaland state said earlier it was suspending relations and cooperation with the federal government in Mogadishu following a dispute over regional elections.

Jubbaland, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia and is one of Somalia’s five semi-autonomous states, reelected regional president Ahmed Mohammed Islam Madobe for a third term in elections on Monday.

However, the national government based in Mogadishu, led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, opposed the election, saying it was held without federal involvement.


Russian missile strike on central Ukraine kills 4: Zelensky

Russian missile strike on central Ukraine kills 4: Zelensky
Updated 30 November 2024
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Russian missile strike on central Ukraine kills 4: Zelensky

Russian missile strike on central Ukraine kills 4: Zelensky
  • More than a dozen others were wounded, including a child
  • “A rescue operation is currently underway in the Dnipro region,” Zelensky said

KYIV: A Russian missile strike on a town in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region on Saturday killed at least four people, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
More than a dozen others were wounded, including a child, while a residential building and shop were damaged, according to officials.
“A rescue operation is currently underway in the Dnipro region after the missile strike. As of now, it is known that four people were killed,” Zelensky said in his evening address.
Tsarychanka is about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the region’s capital Dnipro.
The town had a population of around 7,000 people before the war.
The nearly three-year conflict has seen a sharp escalation in recent days, with Moscow pummelling Ukrainian towns and cities ahead of the winter.
Russia launched more than a hundred drones at Ukraine on Friday, a day after knocking out power to more than a million people with strikes on energy infrastructure.


Zelensky says NATO offer for Ukraine-controlled territory could end ‘hot stage’ of war

Zelensky says NATO offer for Ukraine-controlled territory could end ‘hot stage’ of war
Updated 30 November 2024
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Zelensky says NATO offer for Ukraine-controlled territory could end ‘hot stage’ of war

Zelensky says NATO offer for Ukraine-controlled territory could end ‘hot stage’ of war
  • “You can’t give an invitation to just one part of a country,” the Ukrainian president said
  • “So legally, by law, we have no right to recognize the occupied territory as territory of Russia”

KYIV: An offer of NATO membership to territory under Kyiv’s control would end “the hot stage of the war” in Ukraine, but any proposal to join the military alliance should be extended to all parts of the country that fall under internationally recognized borders, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a broadcast interview.
Zelensky’s remarks on Friday signaled a possible way forward to the difficult path Ukraine faces to future NATO membership. At their summit in Washington in July, the 32 members declared Ukraine on an “irreversible” path to membership. However, one obstacle to moving forward has been the view that Ukraine’s borders would need to be clearly demarcated before it could join so that there can be no mistaking where the alliance’s pact of mutual defense would come into effect.
“You can’t give an invitation to just one part of a country,” the Ukrainian president said in an excerpt of the interview with Sky News, dubbed by the UK broadcaster. “Why? Because thus you would recognize that Ukraine is only that territory of Ukraine and the other one is Russia.”
Under the Ukrainian constitution, Ukraine cannot recognize territory occupied by Russia as Russian.
“So legally, by law, we have no right to recognize the occupied territory as territory of Russia,” he said.
Since the start of the war in 2022, Russia has been expending huge amounts of weaponry and human life to make small-but-steady territorial gains to the nearly one-fifth of Ukraine it already controls in east and southern Ukraine.
“If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control. That’s what we need to do, fast. And then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory diplomatically,” he said.
An invitation for Ukraine to join NATO is one key point of Zelensky’s “victory plan”, which he presented to Western allies and the Ukrainian people in October. The plan is seen as a way for Ukraine to strengthen its hand in any negotiations with Moscow.
Earlier this week, NATO’s new Secretary General Mark Rutte said that the alliance “needs to go further” to support Ukraine in its fight against a Russian invasion. Military aid to Kyiv and steps toward ending the war are expected to be high on the agenda when NATO members’ foreign ministers meet in Brussels for a two-day gathering starting on December 3.
However, any decision for Ukraine to join the military alliance would require a lengthier process and the agreement of all member states.
There is also uncertainty as to the foreign policy stance of President-elect Donald Trump. While Trump vowed on the campaign trail to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a single day, he has not publicly discussed how this could happen. Trump also announced Wednesday that Keith Kellogg, an 80-year-old, highly decorated retired three-star general, would serve as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.
In April, Kellog wrote that “bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to a close will require strong, America First leadership to deliver a peace deal and immediately end the hostilities between the two warring parties.”
Meanwhile, during his only campaign debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump twice refused to directly answer a question about whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war — raising concerns that Kyiv could be forced to accept unfavorable terms in any negotiations.
Zelensky’s statement comes as Ukraine faces increasing pressure along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) frontline. In its latest report, the Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said Saturday that Russian forces had recently advanced near Kupiansk, in Toretsk, and near Pokrovsk and Velyka Novosilka, a key logistics route for the Ukrainian military.
Ukraine’s air force announced Saturday that the country had come under attack from ten Russian drones, of which eight were shot down over the Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kherson regions. One drone returned to Russian-occupied territory, while the final drone disappeared from radar, often a sign of the use of electronic defenses.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said that 11 Ukrainian drones had been shot down by the country’s air defense systems. Both the mayor of Sochi, Andrey Proshunin, and the head of Russia’s Dagestan region, Sergey Melikov, both in Russia’s southwest, said that drones had been destroyed in their regions overnight. No casualties were reported.
On Friday, the Ukrainian president announced a number of changes to military leadership, saying that changes in personnel management were needed to improve the situation on the battlefield.
General Mykhailo Drapatyi, who led the defense of Kharkiv during Russia’s new offensive on Ukraine’s second-largest city this year, was appointed the new head of Ukraine’s Ground Forces. Oleh Apostol was named as the new Deputy Commander-in-Chief responsible for improving military training.
Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi also announced Friday that he would bolster units in Donetsk, Pokrovsk and Kurakhove with additional reserves, ammunition, weapons and military equipment.