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Polls Open in Moldova's Snap Election Set to Weaken Russia's Influence

A man wearing a face mask casts his ballot at a polling station during Moldova's presidential election in Chisinau on November 1, 2020, amid the ongoing coronavirus disease pandemic. (SERGEI GAPON / AFP)
A man wearing a face mask casts his ballot at a polling station during Moldova's presidential election in Chisinau on November 1, 2020, amid the ongoing coronavirus disease pandemic. (SERGEI GAPON / AFP)
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Polls Open in Moldova's Snap Election Set to Weaken Russia's Influence

A man wearing a face mask casts his ballot at a polling station during Moldova's presidential election in Chisinau on November 1, 2020, amid the ongoing coronavirus disease pandemic. (SERGEI GAPON / AFP)
A man wearing a face mask casts his ballot at a polling station during Moldova's presidential election in Chisinau on November 1, 2020, amid the ongoing coronavirus disease pandemic. (SERGEI GAPON / AFP)

Polling stations in Moldova opened Sunday morning with voters eager to choose the new parliament after the previous one was dissolved by new President Maia Sandu to shore up her position against pro-Russia forces.

Sandu, who wants to bring Moldova into the European Union, in November defeated Kremlin-backed incumbent Igor Dodon on a pledge to fight corruption in one of Europe's poorest countries, the Agence France-Presse said.

Wedged between Ukraine and EU member Romania, Moldova has long been divided over closer ties with Brussels or maintaining Soviet-era relations with Moscow.

With lawmakers loyal to Dodon blocking Sandu's promises of reform, the former World Bank economist dissolved parliament in April and scheduled the snap vote.

Polls opened shortly after 7 am (0400 GMT) and will close at 9 pm.

"We have a chance to get rid of thieves and choose a holistic and good government," Sandu said in a video address Thursday, speaking in Moldova's main language Romanian.

In another speech in Russian -- the ex-Soviet country's second language -- she said: "The time for change is coming in Moldova."

The slogans resonate with many Moldovans, who in recent years have seen their country rocked by political crises, including a $1 billion bank fraud scheme equivalent to nearly 15 percent of the country's GDP.

"She really wants to change the country for the better," Natalia Cadabnuic, a young Chisinau resident, told AFP.

Sandu, who also served briefly as prime minister, has for many Moldovans become "a symbol of change", said Alexei Tulbure, a political analyst and the country's ex-ambassador to the United Nations.

Adding that Moldovans are tired of corrupt politicians, he said Sandu is the first to make it to the top while "maintaining a reputation for being honest".

- Pro-European majority -Twenty parties and two electoral blocs are running in Sunday's elections.

They must cross the threshold set at five percent and seven percent of the votes respectively to obtain seats in the unicameral assembly.

The 101 lawmakers will be elected for four-year terms.

Going into the vote, Sandu's centre-right Action and Solidarity (PAS) party was leading.

The latest polls showed PAS with 35-37 percent of the vote against 21-27 percent for the party's rivals from the coalition of socialists and communists led by Dodon and former President Vladimir Voronin.

Those figures only account for voters living in the country of 2.6 million people.

Analysts say the diaspora, which is more than a third of Moldova's eligible voters and already threw its support behind Sandu during the presidential polls, could hold the key to the outcome.

According to estimates, the diaspora could bring Sandu's party another 10-15 percentage points.

Analysts say the election will likely be a blow to Russia, which wants Moldova to remain in its sphere of influence.

"The majority will be pro-European, and the influence of Russia will weaken," Sergiy Gerasymchuk, a Kiev-based expert on Moldovan politics, said.

Sandu has already irritated the Kremlin by proposing to remove the Russian military garrison based in Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway state straddling the country's eastern frontier with Ukraine.

Pro-Russia Dodon accused authorities Friday of preparing "provocations" and urged his supporters to be ready to protest to "defend" his bloc's victory.

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Monster Hurricane Milton Threatens an Already Battered Florida

The streets are nearly empty as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf of Mexico on October 07, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images via AFP)
The streets are nearly empty as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf of Mexico on October 07, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images via AFP)
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Monster Hurricane Milton Threatens an Already Battered Florida

The streets are nearly empty as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf of Mexico on October 07, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images via AFP)
The streets are nearly empty as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf of Mexico on October 07, 2024 in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images via AFP)

The Category 4 Hurricane Milton was expected to grow larger on Tuesday as it threatened Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on its way to Florida, where more than a million people were ordered to evacuate from its path.

The densely populated west coast of Florida, still reeling from the devastating Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago, braced for landfall on Wednesday.

The US National Hurricane Center projected the storm was likely to hit near the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, home to more than 3 million people and where some evacuees rushed to dispose of mounds of debris left behind by Helene on their way out of town.

With maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (250 kph), Milton was downgraded from a category 5 to a category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the US National Hurricane Center's latest advisory early on Tuesday.

While fluctuations in intensity are expected, Milton is forecast to remain an extremely dangerous hurricane through landfall in Florida, according to the hurricane center. That means catastrophic damage will occur, including power outages expected to last days.

Fed by warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Milton became the third-fastest intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic Ocean, the Hurricane Center said, as it surged from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in less than 24 hours.

Its path from west to east was also unusual, as Gulf hurricanes typically form in the Caribbean Sea and make landfall after traveling west and turning north.

"It is exceedingly rare for a hurricane to form in the western Gulf, track eastward, and make landfall on the western coast of Florida," said Jonathan Lin, an atmospheric scientist at Cornell University. "This has big implications since the track of the storm plays a role in determining where the storm surge will be the largest."

The Hurricane Center forecast storm surges of 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters) along a stretch of coastline north and south of Tampa Bay.

Jamie Rhome, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, said Milton was expected to grow in size before making landfall on Wednesday, putting hundreds of miles of coastline within the storm surge danger zone.

Milton was likely to remain a hurricane for its entire journey across the Florida peninsula, Rhome told a Monday news briefing.

As of 10 a.m. CDT on Tuesday, the eye of the storm was 65 miles (105 km) north-northeast of Progreso, a Mexican port near the Yucatan state capital of Merida, and 585 miles (840 km) southwest of Tampa, moving east at nine mph (15 kph).

Milton was expected to pound the northern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula in the early hours of Tuesday.

The area is home to the picturesque colonial-era city of Merida, population 1.2 million, several Maya ruins popular with tourists and the port of Progreso.

In Florida, counties along the western coast ordered people in low-lying areas to take shelter on higher ground.

Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, said it ordered the evacuation of more than 500,000 people. Lee County said 416,000 people lived in its mandatory evacuation zones. At least six other coastal counties ordered evacuations including Hillsborough County, which includes the city of Tampa.

With one final day for people to evacuate on Tuesday, local officials raised concerns of traffic jams and long lines at gas stations.

Relief efforts remain ongoing throughout much of the US Southeast in the wake of Helene, a Category-4 hurricane that made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26, killed more than 200 people and caused billions of dollars in damage across six states.