Fear Was the Real Winner in Moldova’s Elections

As expected, the ruling Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) won the parliamentary elections in Moldova last Sunday, 28 September. Less expected, however, was the final result: PAS accumulated 50.17 percent of the vote, which translates into about 55 seats (eight fewer than before) in the Moldovan Parliament and gives PAS the possibility to appoint a prime minister and run the country with a comfortable majority. 

PAS won the elections on a militantly pro-European platform, in an electoral campaign dominated entirely by geopolitics, fearmongering over a potential disruption of the EU integration process, and possible Russian interference in the elections or even a subsequent invasion. Moldovans were told that the ballot box was their weapon — the only defence against Russian tanks.

After the vote, the victory was celebrated not as a victory in a democratic contest, but as a battle fought and won against an enemy. PAS president Igor Grosu even declared: “Moldova showed the whole world that Russia can be defeated.” Local political commentators, PAS supporters, and even the international media depicted the results as a victory over Russia.

This language matters. Framing elections as warfare changes the nature of politics itself. Elections cease to be about negotiation, compromise, or civic participation — they become warfare. Opponents are no longer rivals within a democratic system, but enemies to be defeated. The danger now is that this attitude will extend beyond campaigning into the governance of Moldova itself, while the real, pressing social and economic issues affecting the country go unaddressed.

Fear as a Political Tool

European leaders, including Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, framed the elections as a triumph of democratic resilience, telling Moldovans: “No attempt to sow fear or division could break your resolve. You made your choice clear: Europe. Democracy. Freedom.” The implication was self-evident: Moldovans had resisted the divisive tactics of the opposition and instead chosen the European path. On the ground, however, the story is far less straightforward. The atmosphere during the campaign was thick with fear, militarized language, and geopolitical drama emanating from both sides. The ruling party leaned just as heavily on mobilizing fear, warning of chaos, war, and a halt to European integration should voters turn elsewhere.

This gap between the external and internal narratives is telling. From the viewpoint of Brussels or Berlin, Moldova’s election looks like a simple contest of values: democracy versus division, Europe versus Moscow. Within Moldova itself, however, this apparently simple binary was a little murkier. The elections were less about inspiring visions of reform or practical solutions to everyday hardships, and more about who could most effectively channel popular anxiety. 

Fear is not new to Moldovan politics, but in 2025 it became the central currency of electoral competition. Although PAS succeeded in retaining power, its new mandate differs significantly from its previous mandate acquired in 2021.

Fear-based and militarized politics might deliver short-term electoral victories, but they weaken the long-term foundations of democracy.

Back then, PAS won 52.8 percent of the vote on the promise to reform the justice sector, fight corruption, improve the lives of ordinary Moldovans, grow the economy, and rebuild the state after the oligarchic rule of Vlad Plahotniuc. It was a mandate for hope — hope that, under PAS, Moldova would become better than the country the party inherited. Yet governing proved to be more difficult than opposition. Apart from the (very real) resistance put up by the oligarchic system, PAS also had to confront internal demons: power struggles among various factions, the incompetence of party cadres in managing the economy and implementing reforms, and, perhaps most centrally, a very volatile regional context that culminated in the Russian aggression against Ukraine. 

In the runup to this year’s elections, PAS had little to show in terms of achievements in the areas it made the biggest promises. Lacking real successes to campaign on, the party instead presented itself as the only trusted partner of the EU, even the only political force capable of guaranteeing European integration. PAS branded itself as the party that prevented the war from reaching Moldova and defended the country from constant Russian interference — which, although mostly real, is regularly exaggerated for political purposes.

Throughout the campaign, PAS representatives declared that, should Moldova vote for any other party, the EU integration process would simply be halted — a claim that frequent visits by EU dignitaries seemed to confirm. PAS also told voters that if the party were to lose the vote, nothing could stop Putin’s tanks from pulling Moldova into the war in Ukraine on Russia’s side. The Moldovan diaspora in the West was told in apocalyptic tones that a loss for PAS would see all those thousands of people and their families in the EU sent back to Moldova — another specious claim that European leaders made no attempt to debunk. 

The opposition, particularly the Patriotic Electoral Bloc (BEP) formed by the Socialists and Communists, mirrored this tactic and wrote up its own list of monsters that would invade Moldova should PAS remain in power. Thus, the former president and leader of BEP, Igor Dodon, seriously claimed that PAS would drag Moldova into war by opening a second front in Transnistria, the separatist enclave protected by Russian troops since 1992. “If PAS remains in power, the Sorosists will force [Moldovan president Maia] Sandu to attack Transnistria together with Zelensky and open a second front there — in support of Ukraine and against Russia.”

At the same time, electoral participation for the Moldovan diaspora in Russia was restricted, with only two polling stations serving a population of more than 100,000 people. In contrast, Germany, which hosts a similar number of Moldovan migrants, saw 36 voting stations, along with 76 in Italy and 26 in France. It is clear that there is more than one Moldovan diaspora, and that the current Moldovan government does not value all of them equally.

Economics Disguised as Geopolitics

The campaign’s focus on geopolitics utterly obscured debates over justice reform, the economy, the housing problem in Chișinău (where prices have doubled in the last several years), or poverty reduction. None of the candidates had much to say in terms of concrete policies to solve the many problems facing the country, like demographic decline, poor economic growth (only 0.1 percent in 2024, with 0.9 percent expected this year), inflation (up by roughly 60 percent since 2021), declining purchasing power, and poverty. According to official data, in 2024, 33.6 percent of the population lived below the absolute poverty line, with numbers in the countryside even higher.

The minimum wage in Moldova, currently standing at 281 euro, does not suffice to afford essential goods like food, housing, healthcare, or education. At the same time, although the official average income is constantly increasing and currently stands at nearly 800 euro, data show that approximately two-thirds of employees earn less than or equal to the average wage. This figure shows that Moldova’s economic growth is polarized, concentrated in a few sectors and inaccessible to the majority of workers. The workforce is also plagued by massive discrepancies: salaries in IT and communications, for example, are 150 percent higher than the average, while wages in social services or agriculture and far below the average.

For these reasons, the economic performance of which PAS boasts does not reflect increasing well-being and prosperity, but instead masks growing polarization and social inequality. Very high wages are concentrated in a few, select sectors, while a decent standard of living remains far out of reach for the majority.

It is hard to predict how the second mandate of PAS will unfold, but there is good reason to believe that it will not differ greatly.

The campaigns also failed to put forward any ideas about how Moldova, by some metrics the poorest country in Europe, could become more economically robust and resilient to external shocks. No discussions were held over how to further develop the economy, reducing its dependence on foreign direct investment and low labour costs, or how to improve workers’ rights. To put it simply: none of the parties had much to offer a single mother of two working in a textile factory in a provincial town, who sees prices rise, fears losing her job if she asks for a raise, and whose kids dream about growing up and leaving the country in search of better opportunities. 

Instead, the campaigns focused on geopolitical issues that may have a real impact on the everyday lives of Moldovans, but which national politics can hardly influence. This reflects a trend related not only to the campaign — over the years, the political class in Moldova has “geopoliticized” all important discussions in society to the extent that geopolitics has cannibalized almost the entire political process. Even during local elections, people are encouraged to think about geopolitics and “geopolitical choices”. The situation is not likely to change anytime soon. 

The Never-Ending War of Narratives

It is hard to predict how the second mandate of PAS will unfold, but there is good reason to believe that it will not differ greatly. After all, the names and faces remain the same. Because it brought the party electoral victory, we can expect that PAS will continue to use rhetoric that combines militarized language and geopoliticization of the political process.

The combination of these two is particularly pernicious. The danger is that such militarized rhetoric legitimizes a permanent state of political emergency, in which dissent is treated as betrayal and work for a foreign country, while legitimate democratic criticism is equated with aiding the enemy. Instead of strengthening democracy, this mindset hardens divisions and breeds intolerance.          

Fear-based and militarized politics might deliver short-term electoral victories, but they weaken the long-term foundations of democracy. Citizens become accustomed to voting not for platforms they believe in, not for real solutions to their problems, but against threats they are told to fear. Opposition parties, regardless of their merits, are delegitimized as existential threats, and governments, instead of being held accountable for their performance, justify shortcomings by pointing to the ever-present spectre of external threats.

In Moldova’s case, the consequences are particularly striking. PAS won another term, but on a shaky mandate that leaves the party vulnerable to disillusionment once the fears it invoked fail to materialize. Worse, it risks creating a democracy where elections are no longer moments of civic deliberation, but ritualized battles in a never-ending war of narratives.