Chisinau and Gagauzia Agree on Election Plan, but Russian Interference Threatens the Deal

Chisinau and Comrat, the administrative centre of Gagauzia, a pro-Russian autonomous region in southern Moldova, have reached a tentative agreement to unblock regional elections, but analysts warn that Ilan Shor’s network and Russian interference could sabotage the deal before votes are cast.

After months of institutional deadlock, Moldovan authorities and representatives of the Gagauz autonomy have agreed on a transitional document to allow elections to the People’s Assembly in Comrat to proceed before the end of 2026, as reported by Cotidianul.

The agreement was reached following a working group meeting at the Presidency and is intended to resolve a prolonged dispute over the alignment of Gagauzia’s electoral legislation with Moldova’s national Electoral Code.

Among the sticking points was a disagreement over terminology: Comrat had insisted on the term “Central Electoral Commission of Gagauzia”, while national legislation provides for an Electoral Council of the autonomous region. The transitional document is designed to bridge these technical and legal gaps and allow a new election date to be set, most likely in autumn 2026.

The mandates of the current People’s Assembly deputies expired in November last year, and two previous attempts to hold elections, scheduled for 22 March and 21 June 2026, were both overturned in court.

Political commentator Ion Tăbârță welcomed the working group meeting as a positive first step but flagged the risks ahead. “If there are subjective factors from the Shor network and the Russian Federation that intentionally thwart, or even try to strain, the political dialogue between Chisinau and Comrat, then of course, finding a solution will be more difficult,” he said.

Analyst Ștefan Bejan was more explicit about the political stakes. “The problem is a technical-legal one, but in fact, it is much more than that; it is a political problem. Behind it are the interests of Ilan Shor, who wants a political confrontation. Russia wants to use the Gagauz region again to blackmail the Republic of Moldova’, he said.

Bejan also warned that prolonging the power vacuum in the region could be serving a broader strategic purpose, casting doubt on Moldova’s stability in the eyes of European officials at a sensitive moment in its EU accession process. “Maybe this is also a goal, to make European officials think before opening the negotiation clusters,” he said.

Both analysts agreed that resolving the deadlock is in the interests of both Chisinau and Comrat and that the continued absence of functioning institutions in the autonomy is damaging first to the region’s own residents and second to Moldova’s international credibility.