Pro-Western President Maya Sandu is seeking re-election after steering Moldova closer to the European Union than ever before as the war in Ukraine raged near its eastern border.
Sandu received 42% of the vote in the first round, held on the same day as a referendum on EU membership that passed by a narrow margin. Both votes were marred by a large-scale vote-buying scheme linked to the Kremlin, which Sandu said represented an "unprecedented assault" on democracy in Moldova.
She is running against Alexandru Stoyanoglo, a former prosecutor general who is running on the pro-Russian Socialist Party ticket. If other parties join him, the second round will be extremely even.
During last Sunday's (27 October) presidential debate, Sandu - a Harvard-educated former World Bank official who has severed ties with Moscow - called Stoyanovglou a "Trojan horse" trying to infiltrate the country's capital, Chisinau, on behalf of the Kremlin.
Analysts say this is not just rhetoric. Valeriu Pasha, director of the WatchDog.MD think tank, told CNN that Sunday's vote is about "whether we have a president elected by the citizens or someone who wins because Russian dirty money paid for it."
Before the vote last month, Ilan Shore, a Russian-backed oligarch, offered to pay people to work to elect a Russia-friendly candidate and stop the referendum. Sandu said the scheme was aimed at bribing about 300,000 voters - about 10 percent of the population.
Although Stoynoğlu had just over 10% of the vote before the election, he won more than 26% of the vote in the first round. Both the Kremlin and Shore have denied meddling, but Moldovan officials have warned that the second vote could also be subject to similar schemes.
In addition to vote-buying, analysts say the first round showed genuine opposition to Sandu, whose first term was rocked by successive crises.
"First it was the Kovida-19 pandemic, then it was Russia's war in Ukraine, then it was the gas crisis," said Maxim Samorukov, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Russian Eurasian Studies.
Although Sandu weaned Moldova off Russian gas, it was costly for one of Europe's poorest countries. Inflation soared to more than 30 percent in a short time, leading to increased poverty.
Some also criticised Sandu's "cynical" decision to hold the EU referendum on the same day as the presidential elections, positioning himself as the only politician capable of bringing Moldova into Europe.
"The government's plan was that the issue of European integration would drag down support for Maya Sandu. It turned out to be the opposite: the discontent with Maya Sandu dragged down support for European integration," Samurokov said.
Stoyanoglo is trying to take advantage of the discontent against Sandu by standing with one foot in both camps. He has called for a "reset" of relations with Moscow and said he would like to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, while maintaining he is determined to join the EU.
"As a result, his platform is a mix of contradictory policies. Either you support European integration or you want to promote cooperation with Moscow. It's very difficult to reconcile," Samurokov said.
Nevertheless, Moldovan officials are preparing for a second round of voting marked by pro-Russian interference. Sandu's defeat would deal a crushing blow to Moldova's hopes for a European future.
A government favourable to Russia could also lead to new problems in Transnistria, a separatist part of the territory where some 1,500 Russian soldiers are stationed. Officials have long wondered whether Transdniestria could eventually become a second front in Ukraine's war.
"The worst-case scenario is that if they take full control of parliament, they will gradually liquidate all democratic institutions, including free and fair elections. Then they will use Moldova as a beachhead behind Ukraine," Pasha said.
The elections in Moldova will be held a week after those in Georgia, another former communist state where Russia is trying to maintain its influence.
After the increasingly authoritarian Georgian Dream party declared victory, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had "won" in Georgia and was poised to do the same in Moldova. Sunday's vote will determine whether he is right. | BGNES
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Christian Edwards, CNN
