The Bashkan (Governor) of Gagauzia was chosen by one round of voting. Irina Vlah polled the largest number of votes in the March 22 elections. According to the preliminary data of the Comrat Election Commission, Irina Vlah won 32,543 votes, which is 51.01% of the ballot, IPN reports.

Nicolae Dudoglo finished second with 19.05% of the poll, while Valeriu Ianioglo took the third position with 7.96% of the vote. Ex-Bashkan Dumitru Croitor polled 6.20% of the ballot, Oleg Garizan – 5.11%, Ruslan Garbaly – 4.98%, Alexandru Stoianoglo – 4.97%, Leonid Dobrov – 0.40%, Serghei Chernev – 0.19%, while Ilia Anastasov – 0.13%.

The voter turnout was 58.1%.

Irina Vlah ran independently, but in the election campaign was openly supported by the Party of Socialists. The Bashkan is an ex officio member of Moldova’s Government.