25 Feb 2019; DW: Moldova's pro-Russian and pro-EU parties were neck and neck after polls closed in Sunday's parliamentary election, with more than 30 percent of the vote counted.
The broadly pro-Russia opposition Socialists, the party of President Igor Dodon, has won around 30 percent of the vote, while the ruling Democratic Party was slightly behind with about 29 percent, according to figues from the Electoral Commission.
The pro-European group ACUM was in third place with about 20 percent.
Between the EU and Russia
The Socialist Party and pro-EU Democratic Party are fighting over Moldova's future.
Dodon has pledged to renegotiate a 2014 association agreement with the European Union if his party wins the vote. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, wants even closer ties to the bloc.
The Democratic Party-led coalition government has, however, lost support following a string of corruption scandals. It has also been accused of trying to rig the political system in its favor by introducing votes on direct mandates alongside votes on party lists.
Controversy ahead of election
Allegations of fraud, corruption and poisonings had mired the runup to the vote, with Dodon describing the election campaign as "one of the dirtiest in our entire history."
The president said an inconclusive result in Sunday's vote could force fresh elections.
"If no one has a parliamentary majority, I think that there will be attempts to form it, but the risk is high that it could come to a snap election in the coming few months," he said.
'State captured by oligarchic interests'
Some 3.27 million people were eligible to vote on who would occupy the parliament's 101 seats.
Moldova is one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in Europe and only recently recovered from a devastating banking scandal in 2014. The European Parliament has declared it "a state captured by oligarchic interests."
The landlocked country borders Ukraine to the east and EU-member Romania to the west.
