KISHINYOV, Moldova -- An impressive victory by a pro-independence party in Moldova's weekend parliamentary elections has all but buried nationalist hopes of a merger with ethnic kin in Romania.


But the triumph of the Agrarian Democratic Party, or ADP, keen to boost contacts with Russia for the sake of its vast markets, is also bad news for Slav separatists in the Dnestr region, who have used distrust between Moscow and Kishinyov to their advantage.


"We have won in order to ensure Moldova's statehood," an ADP leader, Petru Luchinsky, told reporters after the first poll returns gave the Agrarians over 40 percent of the vote.


Their nationalist rivals, the Popular Front, who were trying to lead the tiny former Soviet republic towards reunification with "Mother Romania," won less than 10 percent.


The first target of the Agrarians, who have strong roots both in rural areas and government offices, is likely to be the Popular Front.


In the nationalist exuberance of the early days of independence, gained after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Moldova took a flag and national emblem only slightly different from those of Romania. It fully adopted its neighbor's national anthem, "Wake up, Romania!"


The Popular Front advocated the idea that the independence of Moldova, where 65 percent of the 4-million-strong population are ethnic Romanians, was only a transitional period on the way to reunification.


This view has apparently been rejected at the polls.


There are several factors which brought success to the ADP's pro-independence stand, including awareness that living standards are better in Moldova than Romania, bitter memories of treatment at the hands of Romanian landowners and bureaucrats when Moldova formed a province of Romania, and reluctance, among Moldovan farmers, to sever links with traditional markets in other ex-Soviet republics.


The winners are set to reinforce their election victory with a number of other steps. A non-binding plebiscite is scheduled for Sunday, at which the population will be asked whether they support preserving Moldova's independence.


President Mircea Snegur, widely seen as an ADP supporter, told reporters that he would favor adopting laws which would make calls to abandon Moldova's independence a criminal offense.


The Popular Front's calls for the reunification caused another headache for Kishinyov. The prospect of the merger scared many of the country's 1.5 million Russian-speaking population, concerned they would become second-class citizens.


It was such fears that prompted the Russian-speaking industrial region east of the Dnestr river to declare independence from Moldova in 1991, sparking a conflict in which hundreds have died.


Leaders of the region have rejected Snegur's offers of strong autonomy and the right to secede if Moldova ever merged with Romania, hoping to preserve complete independence.


They have managed so far to play on distrust between Moscow and Kishinyov. But the election victory of the ADP, which announced it would be seeking good relations with Russia, has obviously endangered such tactics.