A polling station in Moldova’s capital of Chișinău. Photo (c): Maxim Edwards. All rights reserved.On 30 October, Moldovans went to the polls after a heated electoral campaign. For the first time in 20 years, the country has held direct elections for president (parliament has nominated the head of state since 1996). But the race isn’t over yet.
This election pitched Maia Sandu, a Harvard-educated economist from the Action and Solidarity Party, against the Party of Socialists’ Igor Dodon, a former deputy prime minister and minister of economics, along with seven other candidates. Pre-electoral polls put Dodon ahead, with some 27% of the vote to Sandu’s 13%.
As always, most analysts have explained the elections through — or boiled them down to — geopolitics. Moldova and the EU signed an association agreement in 2014, but there are many who feel the country’s future lies in its economic ties to Russia. Igor Dodon is one of them, while Maia Sandu is strongly committed to a pro-European course.
