The electoral geography of Eastern Partnership candidate states: Georgia and Moldova in 2024

The Partnership and Cooperation Agreements between the European Union and the post-Soviet states since the 1990s have constituted a relatively successful strategy for their integration. Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine (as candidate states), along with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (as full members since 2004), stand as representative examples. Nevertheless, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since 2022 has brought a series of changes in the attitudes of governments and the perceptions of societies in these countries. Beyond surveys, electoral behaviours may serve as a representative measure of how the relationship of these states with the European Union and Russia has shifted. In 2024, the narrow victory of the ‘Yes’ vote in the Moldovan constitutional reform referendum and of Georgian Dream in Georgian parliamentary elections – halting the integration process – may be considered as cases of interest. The aim of this article is to assess the relevance of cleavages such as nationality and rurality in these outcomes, as well as to explore spatial perspectives that may shed light on these transformations. By applying tools from electoral geography and spatial econometrics, this paper demonstrates the relevance of these variables and illustrates how specific territorial linkages with Russia, potentially economic, may influence scepticism toward the European Union.