Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Cristian Canțâr

@cristiancantir.bsky.social

1.2K followers 1.2K following 1.7K posts

Associate Professor, Oakland University. Foreign policy analysis, paradiplomacy/sub-state diplomacy, role theory, Romania, Moldova, fiction, and TV. Academic work: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Vvx23r4AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubda

scholar.google.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · Nov 10

Going to pin a short introduction here as more folks migrate away from the other site. I teach at Oakland University, a public university in the greater metro Detroit area in Michigan. I'm originally from Moldova (lived there until I was 15), and have lived in the U.S...

1 2 15

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 13h

... inside and outside the legislature to build on his successes. Source for the scanned reports: CEC's website (a.cec.md/ro/procese-v...).

Procese verbale scanate

Nr. d/o Denumirea, numărul circumscripției Numărul secțiilor de votare Alegeri parlamentare 2025...

a.cec.md

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 13h

... trend that needs to be addressed. All of these people who voted for PDA will now be watching PDA leader Vasile Costiuc (really, he's the only person people know in PDA) in parliament (assuming his seats aren't invalidated), and he'll have a platform ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 13h

... out of 56 votes cast, PDA actually won with 15 votes, followed by PAS (14) and the Patriotic Bloc (14). I know this one is a minor example, but I think PAS should be trying to figure out what happened in a lot of these localities and investigate whether it's a long-term ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 13h

... For instance, in polling station 21/37 (Ruseștii Noi, the Ialoveni raion), out of about 1,362 valid ballots cast, PAS got 771 and PDA got 317. The Patriotic Bloc got 86 and Alternativa got 59. Another, more minor example: in the village of Veverița (the Ungheni raion) ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 13h

An update: scanned PDF reports for polling stations inside Moldova have been posted on the Central Electoral Commission's website. Still sifting through them, but, as expected, it looks like PDA, affiliated with Romania's far-right AUR, did very well in many localities ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 2d

Moldova's ruling pro-EU PAS undeniably won the Sep. 28 legisl. elections and Moldovans supported the continuation of EU integration efforts. If I were PAS, though, I'd still pay attention to a few worrying trends in the election results. First, results in Gagauzia ...

1 1 1

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

... Transnistria defends "traditional values" against a decadent West. All of these messages are coordinated and dovetail with a lot of similar claims by Russian propaganda. The report is available in Romanian here (promolex.md/wp-content/u...).

promolex.md

1 1

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

... themes include the glorification of the USSR and the 1992 Russo-Moldovan war, the portrayal of Transnistria as being under siege, militaristic messaging, praising the presence of Russian soldiers, fostering a separate Transnistrian identity, and claims that ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

If you want to know what the propaganda environment is like in Transnistria and how it helps foster loyalty to Moscow and Tiraspol, the Promo-LEX NGO has an extensive study covering May-August 2025. Lots of great stuff in there (the report is about 90 pages), but the dominant ...

1 4 4

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

... been wallowing in polls at around or below 1% for years), and so on, all of which should factor into a diagnosis of what went wrong. Anyway, useful interview to see how Dodon is framing his apology to the Kremlin for failing to win the election (source: Dodon's Facebook).

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

... and attacks on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, unclear socio-economic policies, lack of popularity in the diaspora (in part because of its attacks on it), the absence of any charismatic political figures (I mean, they had to dig deep and get Vasile Tarlev in the bloc, who'd ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

... failures, and I wonder if there will be more internal/private analysis. Certainly doesn't seem like Dodon wants to take any blame for the bloc's various problems, including an incoherent position on EU integration, lack of condemnation of RU's invasion of Ukraine ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

... for the pro-RU opposition is to claim the opposition didn't lose votes compared to 2024 and did as well as it could have given what he calls the PAS "dictatorship" or "regime." This isn't a particularly thoughtful self-reflection about the pro-RU opposition's ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

... and EU bureaucrats participating in the election on PAS's side. Dodon also says that Euro-M.P.s blackmailed Moldovans by telling them that not voting for PAS would entail disaster for Moldova. So Dodon's public diagnosis for what went wrong ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

... which include not having any "instruments," any media access (an amusing comment in light of the absolute onslaught of Russian propaganda in the election, which supported his bloc's narratives), fears of war he says PAS has been pushing, ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

... did and admits he was hoping the bloc would syphon off more votes from the ruling PAS (Dodon is just saying the quiet part out loud here about the Kremlin's hopes for Alternativa). Dodon adds that the opposition did all it could "given the current circumstances," ...

1 1

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

... if he's hinting that they didn't bring anything to the table and just rode PSRM's coattails, but that's one way to interpret his comments). Dodon also says he is disappointed with how poorly the Alternativa bloc (led by Chișinău mayor Ion Ceban) ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

... Dodon says that the bloc won about what his Party of Socialists (the dominant party in the bloc) won in the first round of the 2024 presidential election, and mentions that smaller parties in the bloc also got some M.P.s (not quite sure ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 1d

I. Dodon, the most popular pro-Russian politician in Moldova, whose Patriotic Bloc won 24.2% in the Sep. 28 legisl. election (to the Kremlin's disappointment), was asked if the pro-RU opposition made any mistakes in the race. Some English-lang. highlights from his answer: ...

1 1 2

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 2d

I should add here that, by virtue of seat redistribution, the highest percentages don't always turn into the largest amounts of seats. That record is held by PCRM in 2001, which converted its 50.07% of the vote into 71/101 seats, which gave it a constitutional majority.

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 5d

Biggest ever wins in the history of Moldova's parliamentary elections since independence: first place goes to the pro-EU PAS in 2021 (52.8%), followed by PAS again (!) in 2025 (50.2%), PCRM in 2001 (50.07%), PCRM in April 2009 (49.48%), and PCRM in 2005 (45.48%)...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 2d

... Source for the three screenshots: the Central Electoral Commission's results map.

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 2d

... in the diaspora, lest its role as a pro-Western bastion gets slowly eroded. Some of these trends will get more visible soon: Moldova has local elections in 2027, which PAS needs to win to ensure cross-country buy-in with the difficult EU integration process...

1 1

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 2d

... and mercurial politicians who don't really believe in liberal democracy, making inroads in the Western diaspora. And I think they have room to grow there, as well. So I'd pay more attention to how these politicians, especially Costiuc, are getting more attention ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 2d

... and pro-Western groups in Moldova. But Costiuc's PDA and Renato Usatâi's our Party came in second and third in Italy, after PAS's 77.68%, for instance. Again, that may not look like much, but we have two populist parties with absolutely no coherent platform ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 2d

... in individual polling stations, especially in smaller areas outside of Chișinău - we'll check on that once CEC posts each scanned "proces verbal" online). And, finally, a related point, Moldova's diaspora has been a reliable supporter of pro-EU ...

Cristian Canțâr @cristiancantir.bsky.social · 2d

... that largely stayed out of the traditional electoral campaign nearly surpassed the Patriotic Bloc and other large groups like Alternativa, who invested a lot in the race, in several raions. (I also suspect, by the way, that PDA likely did even better ...