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Central Election Commission (CEC) released the final preliminary results after processing 100% of the electoral bureaus’ minutes. According to this data, Igor Dodon received 52.18% of the votes, and Maia Sandu — 47.82%. According to CEC, the socialists’ candidate received 835,210 votes and the the anti-oligarhic candidate received 765,461 votes, the difference being of 69,749 votes. The turnout in the second round of the presidential election was of 53.52% or 1,600,671 voters.

During a press briefing, the Socialists’ candidate, and winner of the second round of presidential elections, Igor Dodon, promised that he “will be a president of all Moldovan citizens, regardless of their political views”. Besides this, president elect urged her candidate, Maia Sandu to contribute towards reducing tensions in the society appeared after the announcement of the elections results by the CEC.

During a press conference, presidential candidate Maia Sandu said that these elections were neither fair nor free, and that opponents used dishonest methods — dirty money, manipulation, involving the administrative resources even the state special service. PAS leader said that they will submit to the Constitutional Court the evidence of committed irregularities. Besides this, Maia Sandu repeatedly requested the resignation of the Central Election Commission chair as well as that of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, because, according to her, these officials have infringed upon Moldovan citizens’ right to vote. // IPN

The Election Observervation Mssion of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Observers Mission from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, European Parliament Delegation mission and the observers mission of the Commonwealth of Independent States, reported that despite some shortcomings, the second round of presidential elections in Moldova took place in a transparent and fair manner. According to the observers, Moldovan citizens were able to freely express their will. // deschide.md

Protests organized by the Association “Honor, Dignity and Fatherland” (ODIP), where protesters called for a rerun of the presidential elections where everyone would be guaranteed their right to vote. The protesters marched to the headquarters of the Central Election Commission, in order to submit a complaint denying the November 13 election results. The protesters plan to submit a petition to the Constitutional Court and also sent letters to the foreign embassies in Chisinau. The protesters, mostly of them youth but also voters of all ages, said they require repeated elections and are dissatisfied by the fact that there were conditions ensured so that the transnistrian electorate could vote but this was not done for voters in the diaspora. // IPN

A group of civic activists initiated a petition calling for the resignation of the leadership of the Central Election Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, the main reason for this being the fact that not all Moldovan citizens living abroad could vote on November 13, due to the insufficient number of ballots available at the polling stations abroad. The petitioners argue that “in Dublin (Ireland), Mestre, Bologna, Parma (Italy), Paris (France), Bucharest (Romania), London (UK), Moscow (Russia) and other cities polling stations ran out of ballots long before the polling stations closing time, and hundreds of people queued in vain to vote”. // realitatea.md

The Constitutional Court (CC) has issues a statement after several media outlets covered the presidential election results as well as the complaints from citizens living abroad. According to the press release published by the CC “the legislation makes it clear that all complaints regarding electoral violations should be dealt with exclusively by the courts, these complaints not falling within the competence of the Constitutional Court. In its turn, the Court will rule on the confirmation of the election results only after all complaints have been resolved by the courts”.

According to a press release published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration they have received for the second round of the elections, a number of 288,850 ballots to be distributed to the 100 polling stations open abroad, which represents an increase of circa 6.4% compared to the first round. Out of these ballots, according to preliminary data of the Central Election Commission, there have not been used about 153,135 ballots, which represents about 53%. Besides this, the Foreign Ministry together with the Office for Relations with Diaspora in partnership with diplomatic missions and consular offices “have spent considerable efforts to inform Moldovan citizens living abroad about the polling stations opened abroad as well as directing them to the nearest polling stations.”

CEC chairwoman Alina Russu, said in a press conference that this year’s presidential elections were “a test for all actors involved in this process, particularly for the Moldovan citizens, who for the first time in 20 years had the opportunity to directly elect the head of state”. In this context, Central Election Commission leadership apologized from the citizens who were unable to vote. “We are sorry about the situation when a number of Moldovans citizens could not exercise their right to vote. This mishap is a lesson to be learned by us and by other institutions involved in organizing the elections in Moldova,” said Alina Russu. // realitatea.md

According to Promo-LEX, PSRM candidate Igor Dodon, received 55.5% of the total votes, compared to 52.29% showed by CEC preliminary results. PAS candidate, Maia Sandu, received according to observers, 44.5%, compared to 47.71% as presented by CEC’s preliminary data. Parallel counting shows that Igor Dodon has 826 000 votes, compared with 835 000 votes found in CEC data. Maia Sandu received according to the observers, 712 000 votes, compared with 761 000 votes presented by CEC data. Promo-LEX said that they did not have access to the minutes from 64 polling stations abroad, thus the parallel counting was done based on the available minutes. // IPN

Irregularities found in polling stations from Leuseni, Hincesti rayon, Copceac, Stefan Voda rayon and in polling station no. 5 from Nisporeni town. There was a discrepancy between the total votes numbers recorded in the minutes differed from the ones made public by the Election Commission, these data being reversed, and attributed to the wrong candidate. According to CEC data made public through the information system “Elections” has a preliminary character. // Unimedia