Communists win in Moldova

CHISINAU, Moldova -- Moldova's ruling Communist Party, once allied with Russia but now favoring closer ties to the European Union, won a parliamentary majority in national elections, according to results released yesterday.

But the party fell short of taking enough seats to ensure the reelection of President Vladimir Voronin.

Sunday's elections have raised tensions with Russia, which maintains peacekeepers in a separatist Slavic enclave in Moldova, and dealt another blow to Moscow, which fears it is losing influence in the ex-Soviet republics after the election of pro-Western leaders in Georgia and Ukraine last year.

Moldova's Communist Party fell out with Moscow in 2003 over the future of the Russian-speaking Trans-Dniester region, a sliver of land along Moldova's border with Ukraine.

In the final vote count, Voronin's Communist Party had 46 percent of the vote, down from the 50 percent the party polled in 2001 elections, the Central Electoral Commission said.

The centrist Democratic Moldova bloc won 29 percent of the vote, more than doubling the 14 percent won by bloc member Braghis Alliance in the previous election. The center-right Popular Christian Democratic Party won nearly 10 percent of the vote, slightly more than it got in 2001.

Only these three parties, out of 15 vying for seats, cleared the 6 percent threshold required by law for parties to enter parliament.