Tackling the Pressing Challenges to Moldova’s Democracy

Moldova’s democratic progress has been a beacon of hope for democracy supporters around the globe. Yet the parliamentary election on 28 September threatens to reverse this trend and compromise the country’s governance for years to come. The ruling Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) has monopolised the pro-EU camp and now confronts a growing coalition of opposition forces with openly pro-Russia stances. A Kremlin-led interference campaign is helping these forces to gain traction by capitalising on economic discontent, energy insecurity, and frustration with the pace of reforms.

Widespread international efforts to counter disinformation have not prevented Russia-backed narratives from resonating with Moldova’s population, as the country’s vulnerability is partly the result of its weak state institutions and declining public trust. The election will be decisive, and the result could influence Moldova’s EU accession prospects and reverse some of the significant democratic reforms of recent years.

Safeguarding electoral integrity

Moldova has been the target of a massive Russia-led disruption campaign that includes disinformation, vote buying, and energy coercion. While Moldova has made significant advances by strengthening its electoral code and laws on voter fraud, concerns over the integrity of elections persist.

The 2024 presidential election and EU referendum exposed the breadth of Russian interference, which included the organisation of illegal transports of voters in Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. In total, 140,000 people were investigated for electoral corruption, and some 25,000 were fined.

More recently, an investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network and the Moldovan outlet CU SENS has revealed fresh details about training camps operated by Russian agents in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. According to the Moldovan government, these camps were used to train Moldovan nationals in methods intended to destabilise the country ahead of the presidential election. Telegram channels were used to recruit and pay people to spread disinformation, hate speech, and anti-EU propaganda.

In response to widespread vote buying and electoral fraud linked to Kremlin-backed actors, including an estimated €35 million funnelled to more than 130,000 voters during the 2024 election, Moldovan authorities have stepped up their efforts to safeguard electoral integrity. The country’s parliament has amended eight laws, including the criminal and electoral codes.

At the same time, Moldova’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) has increased its efforts to ensure electoral oversight. In particular, the commission rejected the registration of the Victory bloc, which consists of four parties linked to the Șor Party, which was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court in 2023. In July 2025, the EU imposed sanctions on the Victory bloc for its role in disinformation and vote-buying schemes.

Overall, the CEC found that only 23 parties of the 66 parties registered in Moldova were eligible to run for elections, with others barred even from running. Many political parties had their registrations rejected for not submitting all the required documents, while others were refused on the grounds of being affiliated with Russia or Russia-linked actors, such as the oligarch Ilan Shor. Some of these parties challenged their rejected registrations through Moldova’s courts, which resulted in their files being re-examined.

To increase Moldova’s election integrity, a recent pre-election observation mission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recommended earlier this month that state institutions should prevent the misuse of administrative resources, increase transparency in campaign finances, provide clear and comprehensive information for voters abroad, guarantee equitable media coverage while addressing hate speech, and ensure the safety of journalists.

Yet, Russian interference in the upcoming election is at an all-time high. Moldovan President Maia Sandu has warned that Russia is preparing an unprecedented campaign to “control Moldova” through 10 different types of covert operation from vote buying to illicit financing, reportedly with a budget of €100 million. For instance, a study by WatchDog.md revealed that Moscow had created thousands of Facebook pages to hijack Moldova’s public discourse through social media. According to NewsGuard, from mid-April to mid-July 2025, the Russian influence operation Matryoshka pushed out 39 false claims against Moldova, which reached thousands of social media users.

Civil society and independent media in Moldova have become cutting-edge experts in fighting foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). But despite their cooperation with the institutions in charge of safeguarding the democratic process, they remain under-resourced. The EU and its member states need to provide increased, flexible, long-term support that meets activists’ need for a more strategic, sustained funding model.

Advancing democratic governance

Despite such a challenging backdrop, various democracy indices show that Moldova has made slight improvements in democratic quality. The EU has acknowledged that the country is ready to open accession negotiations, having met the necessary conditions and shown strong political will. Notably, Moldova has strengthened public transparency and government openness through a 2023 law on access to information. Chişinău has also introduced new forms of participation, such as online consultative platforms and advisory or expert committees, that bring together civil society actors and public authorities. And judicial reforms are in progress, including the establishment of specialised anti-corruption courts and vetting mechanisms.

However, these long-sought improvements to the country’s rule of law are contentious because of a lack of visible results, which puts PAS at odds with the public. The depth and ambition of the reforms makes them highly sensitive and prone to criticism if they fail to deliver tangible outcomes.

In this regard, the arrest in July 2025 of Vladimir Plahotniuc, a fugitive oligarch who was a central figure in the country’s state capture and corruption schemes in the 2010s, is crucial in countering the public sentiment of the impunity of high-profile individuals. The arrest ends over six years of evasion by the central figure in Moldova’s 2014–15 banking fraud, which siphoned off approximately $1 billion and pushed the country to the brink of bankruptcy. Sandu welcomed the development, stating there was now no reason for delays in delivering justice.

A law-based, depoliticised handling of Plahotniuc’s case would signal a tangible break from past patterns of institutional capture. This would mark a significant milestone in Moldova’s efforts to consolidate the rule of law. At the same time, the case is exerting exceptional pressure on the country’s legal and political institutions to demonstrate their independence, competence, and resilience in the face of one of Moldova’s most emblematic instances of corruption.

Another noteworthy example is the case of Evghenia Guțul, governor of the autonomous territorial unit of Gagauzia. She received a seven-year prison sentence in August 2025 for channelling undeclared Russian funds to the Șor Party between 2019 and 2022. Guțul claims the sentence is politically motivated and is seeking to appeal. Meanwhile, both the EU and the US have sanctioned Guțul for her alleged involvement in efforts to destabilise the Moldovan state.

However, there is also a risk that rushed legislation to safeguard elections may endanger democratic freedoms. For example, recent amendments targeting electoral corruption included provisions on the freedom of assembly, such as sanctions on those who receive financial incentives to take part in certain public assemblies. These provisions were criticised by Moldovan human rights organisations for placing disproportionate restrictions on the freedom of assembly.

The key policy questions are: How can Moldova protect elections from foreign interference without undermining fundamental rights, and how can the EU help navigate this delicate balance? This tension between security and openness is further illustrated by the ongoing secrecy surrounding files relating to protests that took place on 7 April 2009. What began as a peaceful demonstration against alleged electoral fraud escalated into violent clashes and serious allegations of police brutality and human rights abuses. Despite legal requirements and civil society calls for transparency, the records remain classified. Unless Moldova can balance electoral integrity with fundamental freedoms, efforts to protect democracy may in fact undermine public trust in it.

In the run-up to the September 2025 election and with democracy under siege on many fronts, Moldova’s democratic institutions are understandably seeking support from like-minded partners. The EU Partnership Mission in Moldova supports the country’s authorities in strengthening their crisis-management systems and boosting their resilience against hybrid threats, including cybersecurity and disinformation.

Meanwhile, the EU’s Growth Plan for Moldova marks a significant milestone in the country’s European and democratic path, with a €1.9 billion package closely tied to democratic reform. Financial support will be conditional on Moldova delivering a reform agenda that focuses on good governance, anti-corruption, judicial independence, efficient public administration, and human rights.

Following the July 2025 EU-Moldova summit, the two sides plan to establish cooperation between their enforcement authorities and build up Moldova’s regulatory capacity. There are also plans for Moldova to join the Digital Europe Programme, which will give the country access to the EU’s cybersecurity expertise and resources. Similarly, Moldova’s increased cooperation with France on combating disinformation and FIMI is boosting Moldova’s capacity to withstand Russia’s disinformation campaign in the upcoming election.

It is still too early to assess to what extent these initiatives have built effective resilience on the ground. Yet, Moldova’s parliamentary election will help inform strategies of strengthening democratic resilience in other contexts facing FIMI, such as Armenia’s 2026 parliamentary election, where Russia has already started to make its first moves.

The weaponisation of identity politics

Moldova’s democratic progress must not be taken for granted, as it remains fragile and hinges on many uncertain factors. In March 2025, the opposition communists and socialists introduced a draft foreign agents law, which stigmatised civil society organisations (CSOs). The proposed bill served as a warning to all democratic actors and showed the political direction that the parliament would take if the opposition won a majority in the upcoming election. The draft followed the Russian repressive model that has also been used by the autocratising regimes of Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Republika Srpska, signalling the Moldovan opposition’s alignment with Moscow’s playbook for undermining civic space.

Civil liberties are already threatened by the opposition wherever it holds power. In May, Chișinău Mayor Ion Ceban banned the city’s annual Pride March from taking place, a decision that sparked conflict with the State Chancellery over the legality of the decision. Since then, Romania has barred Ceban from entering the EU’s passport-free Schengen Area on the grounds of national security. This move reflects not only the deepening polarisation of public discourse but also the growing geopoliticisation of Moldova’s political landscape, in which civil liberties and democratic norms are increasingly intertwined with broader questions of geopolitical alignment.

The transnational dimension of illiberal politics is further exemplified by the controversy surrounding the far-right Make Europe Great Again (MEGA) conference held in Chișinău on 28 July. The event aimed to gather far-right figures from across Europe. Moldovan authorities blocked the entry of 17 politicians, including Czech Member of the European Parliament Ondřej Dostál, US conservative activist Brian Brown, Greek ultraconservative politician Dimos Thanasoulas, and several Romanian far-right activists. In Chișinău, Brown met Ceban and former Moldovan President and Leader of the Party of Socialists Igor Dodon, illustrating the ideological fluidity between anti-liberal figures aligned either with the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement or with pro-Russia European circles.

Taken together, these developments signal that Moldova’s pro-EU trajectory is increasingly challenged by a transnational network of conservative and illiberal alliances that span from Russia to parts of the US and Romania. This coordinated ideological challenge to liberal democratic values transcends borders and exploits the institutional fragility of new democracies such as Moldova, which have become proxies in what some have labelled a new cold war between democracies and autocracies.

Moldovan politics has become dominated by identity-driven narratives that pit east against west, modernisation against tradition, and, ultimately, threaten the consolidation of multiparty democracy. These narratives are also instrumentalised by political parties on all sides, furthering division. According to political scientist Eleanor Knott, Moldova’s ethnic and linguistic diversity has long been wrongly framed as a source of division and democratic stagnation, when in fact, this plurality does not inherently threaten state cohesion. It is political elites, not the lived realities of Moldovan society, who drive the narrative of division.

This situation highlights an opportunity for democracy-support actors: initiatives that enable citizens to engage across identity lines can counteract instrumentalised divisions. A citizens’ assembly organised in May–June 2025 under the INSPIRED Moldova project showed that despite their differing sociopolitical backgrounds, a representative panel of citizens managed to find common ground on issues related to democratic resilience and the fight against disinformation.

This outcome offers a powerful testimony for the potential of dialogue and consensus building in Moldova’s pluralist society. When removed from politicised narratives, citizens can not only overcome identity-driven divisions but also collectively shape a more inclusive and democratic future.

State capacity and public trust

One of Moldova’s biggest challenges in recent years has been the economic and energy crisis that is preventing the administration from delivering tangible results to the population. The Moldovan authorities have accused Russia of orchestrating gas-supply schemes that exploit Moldova’s energy dependence to influence the country’s domestic politics, particularly during sensitive pre-election periods. This move aligns with Russia’s broader tactic of weaponising energy in the region.

The EU has provided financial assistance to help Moldova stabilise its energy prices and manage the crisis. Yet, the effects of the crisis continue to ripple through Moldovan society, causing public dissatisfaction with the government. This discontent underscores the need for the EU to ensure that support reaches vulnerable communities directly and leads to more economic inclusion and rural development.

This crisis has also increased the fragility of Moldova’s state institutions, which struggle to keep pace with and address the many challenges affecting the country’s governance. The war in Ukraine, the resulting refugee influx, soaring energy prices, and high inflation have all severely strained Moldova’s limited administrative capacity. According to the Bertelsmann Transformation Index, Moldova’s local administration has only a moderate level of effectiveness, because of corruption, underfunding, and insufficient staffing.

The government aims to address this shortcoming through an ambitious public administration reform strategy, which aims to professionalise the civil service and improve transparency, service delivery, and policy quality. International support, particularly from the EU, plays a critical role in reinforcing Moldova’s institutional capacity and supporting EU-related reforms, but the country’s reliance on external support underscores the fragility of its domestic democratic resilience: without local ownership, reforms could be reversed if political winds shift.

In these circumstances, the recipe for long-term democratic progress is to ensure public trust and strengthen the accountability of government institutions towards Moldovan citizens. This is, of course, easier said than done, because trust deficits in Moldova are substantial and create vulnerabilities that both internal and external actors can exploit. According to data from the Public Opinion Barometer collected in October 2024, 44% of citizens expressed a high level of distrust in the parliament, while only about 20% reported having any degree of trust in the institution.

These findings resonate with research carried out by the National Centre for Assistance and Information for NGOs, which has confirmed that a critical challenge for Moldovan NGOs is the limited openness of public authorities to sustained and meaningful collaboration. According to a survey, about 57.5% of NGO respondents consider them “moderately open” and 24.9% “slightly open”, while only 11.7% perceive them as “very open”. The research found that the proactiveness and transparency of authorities in policymaking is often contingent on the personal will or capacity of public officials, especially at the local level.

This inconsistency creates significant vulnerabilities, particularly during politically sensitive periods, such as elections, when impartial cooperation with civil society is crucial to maintain democratic integrity. The lack of institutionalised mechanisms for engagement leaves room for arbitrary decisions, politicised dialogue, and the exclusion of critical voices.

Enhancing public participation

Against this backdrop, the Moldovan government has begun a process to amend the legal framework on transparency in decision-making to standardise cooperation between public authorities, NGOs, and citizens. The goal is to ensure transparency, accountability, and non-discriminatory access to public interest information, regardless of the political climate.

CSOs have welcomed this initiative and contributed to the process with a set of comprehensive proposals. Civil society has argued that to ensure genuine and consistent public participation, the new law should cover all public institutions, including the parliament, the presidency, local authorities, and state-owned and -managed entities. The legislation should establish clear and enforceable obligations for institutions throughout the policymaking process, especially the parliament, where a newly introduced cooperation framework with civil society has been ineffective because of its perceived non-binding nature and a lack of meaningful implementation.

CSOs have also called for a general requirement for consultations on most policies and decisions, and for the right for citizens to propose initiatives. To ensure the upcoming law is fully implemented, they call for dedicated resources, enforceable sanctions, a monitoring system, inclusive practices for under-represented groups, multiple consultation formats, realistic deadlines, and mandatory feedback to explain how the public’s input was used.

Conclusion

The integrity of Moldova’s parliamentary election on 28 September is crucial for the country’s democratic future and should give momentum to ongoing democratic reforms. Moldova faces enormous challenges, which are exacerbated in the context of the election. Yet, the country’s European future could materialise sooner than many expect as EU member states debate the possibility of decoupling the accession negotiations of Moldova and Ukraine. European Council President António Costa has said that the post-election period might give way to the right conditions for talks to begin.

Moldova’s legal reform efforts in the justice sector and on transparency and citizen participation reflect a crucial turning point. Yet, illiberal forces could threaten such endeavours, and the pressure of external interference makes the country’s democratic institutions especially vulnerable. This interference is only partly to blame, however: economic stagnation, slow justice-sector reform, and perceptions that benefits accrue to the elites fuel frustration and weaken democratic resilience.

Outside influence highlights the urgent need for a structured European Democracy Shield as a multi-pronged approach that combines effective EU legislation, civil society support, independent media, and targeted institutional capacity building to protect elections and democratic governance. The shield should encompass a global dimension extended to the EU candidate countries, including Moldova. Such an initiative could provide the additional tools and funding needed to consolidate Moldova’s democracy in a coordinated framework beyond the next election.

 

Authors

 

The authors thank colleagues and partners for their valuable inputs and review.

This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its content represents the sole responsibility of the INSPIRED Moldova project funded by the European Union. The content of the publication belongs to the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.