Few of you might know today it is election day for the Republic of Moldova. Moldovans have to elect the president, as well as answer to the question of whether Moldova should change its Constitution for a future EU membership.
While the election results seem to be pretty clear in favor of the current, pro-european president Maia Sandu:
Things are different regarding the vote for the referendum:
The "Da" yellow bar, for someone who does know a bit of Russian, means yes (Da is actually one of the few words that Romanian and the Slavic languages have in common). The blue bar on the right means No and as you can see is a bit longer as of now. These are just the preliminary results, as votes are being counted as we speak. The hope comes from the urban centers, where votes are still to be counted, and more people support the European direction than the rural areas (Although at the current growth rate, the Yes camp doesn't seem to be hitting the 50%+1 mark) and the diaspora which has a solid majority in favor of the revision of the constitution:
As I understood, the diaspora vote will only account for something like 5-10% of the total result (which is a bummer, since the diaspora has increased a lot in the latest years), it will not be the average (I'll update this part of the post if things are different).
Why is this important?
Moldova is a small country, sandwiched between the war-torn Ukraine, and the already EU and NATO member Romania. Its current land and some more which is part of Ukraine, (also known as Bessarabia) belonged to the medieval-era Principality of Moldova, which lost it to the Tsarist (Russian) Empire in 1812. That Moldova later united with Wallachia to form the modern-day Romania in 1859. After WWI, Bessarabia united with Romania and stayed so until the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR in 1939, when Romania retreated its administration following a Soviet ultimatum. The current borders of modern Moldova were drawn by them, as it was only an administrative province.
Nowadays, compared to Ukraine and Georgia, Moldova is the EU candidate in Eastern Europe which is the most advanced on the path to accession. The referendum has currently passed the threshold for validation, which means that enough people have voted, irrespective of their option. If the majority of the votes are no, it will be a huge blow to Maia Sandu and her pro-European program. Besides that, the economic situation might get worse with some foreign investors fleeing the country. It is highly likely that Maia Sandu herself will even lose the elections in the 2nd turn - which would bring even more trouble for Moldova and for Ukraine, which already has two hostile neighbors (Russia and Belarus). If the referendum does pass, but with a small majority, there will be room for contestation, and it will be a huge headache going forward. It is necessary that the referendum will pass with an as high percent of Yes votes as possible, in order to eliminate any doubt concerning the European integration of Moldova.
If you've reached all the way here reading this, thank you! Here in Romania it is 01:28 AM Monday morning, just like in Moldova, so the polling stations have closed a while ago (my Friendica node also seems to currently have a 2-hour delay, so you might see this post even later when I'm already sleeping). But across the Atlantic, voting booths should still be open.
As anyone has seen with the Brexit, the results of a referendum can hardly be overturned, if at all.
If you have any friend or acquitance from Moldova, go tell them to go out there and vote, and vote Yes no matter the other option they're choosing for president (I hope they vote for Maia Sandu tho, but I believe in the free will of the others). There is no way one could choose "No", absolutely no way! By choosing this, they will choose for their country to have relations with a country under international embargo.
Source of the pics/realtime info: Referendum, Presidential Elections (it's basically the same page but I made it easier for you since it's only in Romanian and Russian. To view the diaspora votes select Externe in the drop-down above the map of Moldova.
Edit 10:30 AM local time: good morning (from here)! Seems like the Da camp has the advantage with 50.03% (looks like they're now on to the diaspora vote count). We're getting there! π€