BY HOOK or by crook, three parties in favour of closer integration with the European Union seem set to form the next government of Moldova. With 95% of the votes counted from the November 30th election, the pro-Europeans appeared to have won about 55 seats between them in the 101-seat parliament. The parties presented themselves in lofty idealistic terms during the campaign, the pro-Brussels camp trumpeting Moldova’s recent association agreement with the EU and the pro-Moscow camp its eternal love of Russia. But that is not quite the way the voters saw them. Igor Botan, a Moldovan political scientist, says that for most voters the elections represented a strategic choice between “pro-European crooks and pro-Russian crooks”.

Many citizens are questioning the election’s very legitimacy, because the party they planned to vote for was blocked from participating. On November 29th Moldova’s supreme court confirmed an earlier ruling that Patria, a new party led by Renato Usatii, a wealthy businessman, should be barred from the election. The court claimed that the party had been financed using illegal funds from abroad, presumably from Russia.

Mr Usatii’s story is a window into Moldova’s political snakepit. The businessman claims to have served as an adviser to Vlad Filat, a former prime minister, and to have inside knowledge of Mr Filat’s corruption. Mr Filat, in turn, is widely believed to be the real power behind Iurie Leanca, the outgoing prime minister, who is widely respected. Mr Usatii positioned his new party as pro-Russian, and abruptly fled to Moscow three days before the election. His supporters say excluding his party was a nakedly political abuse of the judiciary. Even many pro-European Moldovans agree with that analysis.

In another apparent sleight of hand, a so-called “clone party” was created before the elections whose name and symbol were similar to the mainstream Communist Party. Dorin Chirtoaca, the mayor of Chisinau and a staunch pro-European, says he thinks the clone was created by other pro-Europeans to confuse elderly voters. It got 5% of the vote, which is less than the threshold necessary to enter parliament. If all of its votes had gone to the actual Communist Party, the pro-Europeans would have lost the election.

After Mr Usatii was disqualified, many voters who had planned to back him instead cast their votes for a new Socialist Party. It promoted itself with pictures of its leaders meeting Vladimir Putin, and called for Moldova to enter Russia’s new Eurasian customs union along with other former Soviet republics. Curiously, Moldova’s Communists are far less sympathetic to Moscow; they loathe the Socialists, and say they would like to renegotiate Moldova’s deal with the EU, not scrap it. This is why Russia is believed to have thrown resources and support behind the Socialists and Mr Usatii’s Patria. The Communists may now back the pro-Europeans in parliament.

Russia’s reaction to its political setback will be critical, according to George Balan, a Moldovan official. He is charged with the rather quixotic task of attempting to reintegrate Transdniestria, a breakaway region of Moldova that has been effectively under Moscow’s control since the early 1990s. Last spring, Moldovan authorities observed hundreds of young Russian men they suspected of being militia fighters entering Transdniestria, Mr Balan says. As the fighting in neighbouring Ukraine grew more intense, their numbers trailed off, but lately more are being spotted.

Mr Chirtoaca, whose Liberal Party is among those likely to form the new coalition, says the EU and America must now insist that Moldovan politicians crack down on corruption. But Victor Chirila, the director of the country’s Foreign Policy Association, a think-tank, says the priority is to stabilise the fragile new government. One way to do so would be to seek support from the Communists. Otherwise, he says, Moldova’s pro-Russian voters may feel that their pro-European fellow citizens are telling them “you don’t count and we will do what we like”. With a tenuous economy and Russia breathing down its neck, such divisions may be more than this tiny country can afford.