The vote in Chisinau follows the same pattern, regardless of whether geopolitics is exploited or not, says the political commentator Boris Șapovalov. This time again, he remarks, the election produced two leaders to clash in the runoff – a left-wing party candidate Ion Ceban (PSRM) and a right-wing party candidate Andrei Năstase (ACUM).

Boris Șapovalov considers that Chisinau residents still want a good manager in the mayor’s seat, a less-words-more-action mayor. “We see the same principle of voting, whether geopolitics is used or not,” mentioned the commentator in a special edition on NTV Moldova. According to him, this result obtained by the candidates of the PSRM party and ACUM bloc was expected, except the one of the former mayor of Chisinau, Dorin Chirtoaca, who polled more than 10% of the vote.

Alexandru Muravschi, former Deputy Prime Minister, said that from the very beginning of the election campaign it was obvious the mayor of Chisinau will not be elected from the first round. According to him, it was also obvious that the PSRM candidate and the ACUM bloc candidate will compete in the second round. Muravschi considers that Ion Ceban is in a predicament, he cannot have more voters. His only solution is to mobilize voters that did not go to the polls yesterday. Andrei Năstase, on the other hand, has the opportunity to get the votes that went to the other right-wing candidates in the first round.

The journalist Valerea Demidețkii does not consider that Ion Ceban and Andrei Năstase really compete with each other, because they have distinct electorates: right wing and left wing oriented. In his opinion, more misunderstanding could occur within the bloc ACUM during future elections.

With votes counted at 300 out of 307 polling stations in Chisinau, preliminary results show that PSRM’s Ion Ceban got 40.50% of the vote, and ACUM’s Andrei Năstase 30.93%.