They just crossed the line. Very tight race in the end.
The amount of 50.x Vs. 49.x votes lately is too damn high.
Yeah, given what polls were saying this is shockingly close (65% yes iirc). Russian money down the toilet though so that's something.
BBC saying it'll swing further "yes" from votes yet to be counted thankfully:
Moldovan media said many of the votes yet to be counted had been cast abroad and would likely lean towards Yes, as the Moldovan diaspora is broadly in favour of closer ties with the EU.
Interesting BBC article. At the end, it says:
A BBC producer [at a polling station] heard a woman who had just dropped her ballot in the transparent box ask an election monitor where she would get paid.
Outside, we asked directly whether she had been offered cash to vote and she admitted it without qualms. She was angry that a man who had sent her to the polling station was no longer answering her calls. “He tricked me!” she said.
She would not reply when asked who she had voted for.
Addition: BBC finds evidence of vote-buying in Moldova [video, 1 min.]
“He tricked me!” she said.
She would not reply when asked who she had voted for.
I think we know.
The Kremlin tricking people onto voting against their own interests, shocking!
When the Kremlin wants people to vote, this never means anything good.
Other than Brexit, they're usually encouraging people to vote against their own ability to vote.
Stupid enough to not even take the money beforehand. Amazing. But exactly the type of people one needs to target for this.
Buying 300k votes can really swing an election. Honestly, it’s a miracle that it passed with the rampant fraud
Over issues with a broadly agreeable right answer versus the worst possible wrong answer.
Cake or death?
It's like those tests where people get shocked badly and then grow so bored by sitting still for 15 minutes that they voluntarily shock themselves multiple times just to cure boredom.
Except with permanent, life-altering consequences in some of these votes.
Death by cake. Sign me up! /s
Ehm, cake please.
We're gonna run out at this rate.
But what if the cake isnt good
Im not sure what to choose
Just like a certain UK vote, or the US elections, or other elections around Europe: IT SHOULD NOT BE THIS CLOSE!
Massive Russian operations active in each example
And just like all of those votes, it wouldn’t be so close if it weren’t for a certain country that begins with “Russi” and ends with “a”
While Russia certainly helped move things in one direction, both the Brits and the Americans have to take full responsibility for the messes they created, in order to get out of them. if it wasnt for Russian interference, they would still be divided, just slightly tipping the other way round.
Polling in the UK has indicated that the populace thinks leaving the EU was a poor choice for a long time.
Even people who voted Brexit, at the time, were mostly in favour of having a strong relationship with the EU by staying in the customs union. Most even thought freedom of movement was a fair price to pay for a close trading relationship. Seriously, look up the things even Nigel Farage were saying in the run-up to the vote. That he's not asking we leave the customs union, that our relationship would be close, etc.
It was only in the months after the vote that Brexiteers became more and more separated from reality... their words went from "we can have a relationship like Norway, who isn't an EU member but is still majorly involved and very close" to "let's ignore the EU and completely cut them off". Because that's what happens when you give right wing populists an inch. They will then take a mile.
It should also be noted that the UK is far from alone in this. Around the time of the 2015/2016 Syrian refugee crisis, anti-EU sentiment was at a high all over the union. The UK was only the 2nd-4th most anti-EU country in the union, depending on the study. If more countries had a referendum, more would've left.
The UK did it because David Cameron (PM) was worried about the growing influence of Farage. He called the referendum, expecting Remain to win, which would then cause a collapse in support for Farage/UKIP (who were taking votes away from the Tories).
Each and every country in the west seems to have a sizable populist far right movement these days. In some countries they've even been getting into government recently. I fear we have dark times ahead, because it seems to be a hard issue to tackle.
Disinformation sucks, but ultimately it also comes down to the individual. I get blasted by this shit on a daily basis too and I still can be reasonable where it counts.
The Russi Brothas? They made that superhero movie right? The one with Thanus?
You could read this as a vote for alignment with Russia vs Europe, in which case I completely agree.
In another reading, it's a pretty huge decision on changeing the status quo and giving up a significant amount of sovreignity to join a powerful supranational union of states. It's not necessarily an obvious decision, and reasonable people might vote no.
I'd argue voting to enter the EU is quite different from voting to leave it, as there will usually be a chunk of relatively reasonable voters who are decently happy with the status quo and reluctant to change it.
As I understand it, the main reasons for the EU being an issue at all in Moldova; is for more security against the Russians taking over the country, and the much needed economic help they will receive from the EU.
Also, it might facilitate (some) future integration with Romania.
The sovereignty thing is really overblown when you consider it in practical terms: You having the theoretical possibility to e.g. make favourable trade deals of your own is worth nothing when you don't have the trade standing to actually get those deals. And that's before you role-play as Westminster and sign anything just to be able to say that you signed something.
For a country the size of Moldova having EU negotiators hammer out those deals is a massive win, and they understand it, because unlike the UK they don't mistake themselves for a global empire. Yes, Hungary is probably going to flood your salami market but that's a small price to pay.
When it comes to Gaugazians OTOH I totally understand the apprehensiveness. They're already a minority within Moldova and in the EU they'd be a tiny part of a tiny part of the whole. OTOH If they think that they'd be any better off in the Russian sphere then they're delusional, the EU will actually defend their minority rights.
Shit, have you seen the western Canadian ones? Insanely close.
Great news for Moldova. Hope the Russian trolls are super pissed.
No indoor toilet 4 u Ivan!
No worries, Putin has that covered. Thanks to a concerted effort a lot of apartments of single men should be freed up in Russia in the next months. Some of them might even have running water.
Oh yes, the "Running Ivan", a modern take on the "Crazy Ivan" (real actually) that instead of detecting subs us supposed to detect and avoid drones.
And frees up appartments. Crazy actually.
Yes for what? Ah, whether they constitutionally want to join the EU.
A BBC producer at a polling station in Transnistria relayed a first-hand account of a woman asking an election monitor where she could be paid the cash offered to her for her vote
Holy shit, Russia....
It was a referendum to make constitutional changes that would allow EU accession.
Not allow for EU accession, the Moldovan government could’ve joined the EU without the referendum. This referendum adds a constitutional requirement for all future Moldovan governments to keep working to join the EU, to basically protect Moldova from being fucked over by a future pro Russian government
Thanks for the clarification.
If you have a proper secret vote, then getting paid cash to vote is not a problem. The election judges just need to tell everyone that it is perfectly moral (a stronger case than just legal) to vote for something and collect the cash for voting against.
It is a secret vote. It's up to the voter to keep it secret.
And also, how is getting paid cash to vote not a problem? It's quite clearly voter manipulation. Are you Russian?
He's saying the hard counter is to tell people the vote is secret. They can vote their way and then tell the person offering cash anything they want to tell them. They are under no moral obligation to tell such criminals the truth.
Elon Musk is finding this out in Arizona and Pennsylvania right now and it's hilarious.
Ah, my bad @bluGill. Misunderstood that.
What's the vote about?
Making EU membership a goal in the Moldovan constitution.
50.3%, that's clooooose.
It's amazing how many big obviously consequential decisions around the world come down to a 50/50 vote lately. Have they perfected propaganda techniques that 49% of people are genetically susceptible to? Or is just that nobody knows what the hell is going on so we all decide completely at random what to believe?
There’s probably some truth in “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
Like when people use "average" incorrectly? (You're talking median here.)
Let's hope the upvote/downvote ratio on that comment doesn't stay 50:50.
It would be different without massive Russian interference
One of the things I read about that, is that people tend to take an "average position" between all the opinions they hear. It used to be that the opinions you'd hear would be based on serious media, and your close circles. But much of the media has gone to shit, and social media amplify crazy people because it's good for engagement. So you end up hearing about the crazy position of lore as much as about the rational one. And that does influence a lot of people.
Nice
But doesn't this mean that there will be a runnoff in the November elections, since it didn't cross 50%?
That's for the presidential election. The constitutional changes vote is secure.
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