Moldovan President Maia Sandu voted on Sunday as the country headed to the polls in a tense parliamentary election plagued by claims of Russian interference, a vote seen as a choice between integration with the European Union or a drift back into Moscow’s fold.

Sunday’s pivotal vote will elect a new 101-seat parliament, after which Moldova’s president nominates a prime minister, generally from the leading party or bloc, which can then try to form a new government. A proposed government then needs parliamentary approval.

The tense race pits the governing pro-Western Party of Action and Solidarity, or PAS, which has held a strong parliamentary majority since 2021 but risks losing it, against several Russia-friendly opponents but no viable pro-European partners, leaving uncertainty over potential outcomes and the geopolitical course the country will take.

Opposition candidate for the Socialist Party, Igor Dodon, cast his ballot on Sunday.

The former president and member of the pro-Russian Patriotic Electoral Bloc, voted in the capital, Chisinau.

AP Video shot by Nicolae Dumitrache