Moldovan citizens in Russia formed queues at the two polling stations opened at the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova to vote in the presidential election and the referendum on joining the EU, Russian media reported, quoted by IPN.
According to the quoted sources, the building of the diplomatic mission is located on Kuznetski Most St. The queue yet formed on Rozhdestvenska St as through it the people are allowed to enter the voting area.
“We came to the polls to save our country,” one of the women standing in the line told the journalist. She added that she arrived at the polling station at around 01:00 a.m. Moscow time.
For his part, the man who accompanied her said that it is necessary to “transform the Republic of Moldova into an independent state”. He also criticized the current authorities of the country for the measures taken against citizens living in the Russian Federation. In particular, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the lack of direct transport links between the two countries and the impossibility of sending money to relatives.
Another man in the queue stressed that the Moldovans in European countries have more opportunities to vote. As he said, more polling stations should have been established on the territory of Russia.
One of the women standing in the line said she had to come to Moscow to vote because a polling station had not been opened in St. Petersburg, where she lives. She noted that she came to the polling station to cast her vote for the future of Moldova.
The Moldovan authorities decided to establish only two polling stations in Russia, in Moscow, due to “the Moldovan embassy’s incapacity to meet in other Russian cities all the security requirements imposed by the Security and Intelligence Service (SIS)”.
According to the CEC, 21,000 Moldovan citizens preregistered this year to vote outside the Republic of Moldova in the October 20 election. Of these, around 8,000 are from Russia.
Each polling station in Russia has 5,000 ballots, in accordance with the electoral legislation, which means that a total of 10,000 ballots were sent to the two polling stations set up in Russia.
