In a November 3 presidential runoff, Moldovan voters will choose between pro-EU incumbent Maia Sandu, who won the first round with 42 percent of the vote, and former Prosecutor-General Alexandr Stoianoglo, who secured 26 percent with backing from the pro-Russian Socialist Party of Moldova (PSRM).
While the position of president is technically a ceremonial position in Moldova, holders of the office often wield considerable political influence. RFE/RL's Moldovan Service introduces the candidates, their campaigns, and the controversies that are complicating their careers.
Maia Sandu: Firmly In The EU Camp
A Harvard graduate and former employee at the World Bank, Maia Sandu became Moldova's first female president with a landslide victory in 2020. After winning with a strong pro-EU message and promises to fight corruption and reform the judiciary, Sandu has had her work cut out for her in her first term with an economy ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic and rising geopolitical tensions with Russia.
The 52-year-old Sandu first rose to prominence in 2012, serving as the country's education minister. After an unsuccessful presidential bid in 2016, she briefly served as prime minister three years later when her party allied with the PSRM.
As president, Sandu was instrumental in securing Moldova's candidacy to join the European Union in June 2022, an achievement given extra urgency following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine a few months earlier.
Praised for her integrity by some, Sandu has also been criticized for the slow pace of judicial reform and for failing to revive Moldova's struggling economy. In a televised presidential debate on October 27, Sandu admitted that the promised judicial reform -- including combating corruption and overhauling the Prosecutor-General's Office -- had been slow and vowed such measures would be more efficient in the future.
SEE ALSO: Moldova's Razor-Thin EU 'Yes' Vote Puts President Sandu In A Tight SpotThroughout her presidency, Sandu has been criticized by pro-Kremlin political parties who have accused her of stoking conflict with Moscow. In December 2022, she was chastised for limiting freedom of expression after she suspended the licenses of six pro-Russian TV channels for "dissemination of false information."
In her campaign for reelection, Sandu has pledged to maintain peace, improve living conditions (Moldova is the poorest country in Europe), and join the EU by 2030.
After a narrow victory in the referendum on EU membership, which was held simultaneously with the first round of the presidential election on October 20, Sandu alleged that Moldova was the target of unprecedented fraud and that "criminal groups" and "foreign forces" tried to buy 300,000 votes. She stopped short, however, of disputing the results.
With Moldovan police accusing fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor of being responsible for the vote-buying scheme, Sandu was criticized -- including by her challenger -- for presenting inadequate evidence and for exaggerating the numbers of Moldovans affected. (The police said that 138,000 people were beneficiaries of the vote-buying scheme, not 300,000).
Alexandr Stoianoglo: Hard To Pin Down
Alexandr Stoianoglo's past experience as Moldova's prosecutor-general between 2019 and 2021 has had significant bearing on the thrust of his presidential campaign: justice. The 57-year-old has promised that, if he becomes president, he will ensure the "triumph of law over defamation."
As prosecutor-general, Stoianoglo was widely criticized for his failure to address high-level corruption. Most notably, he was accused of inaction in the cases of Veaceslav Platon, an oligarch involved in the disappearance of around $1 billion from the country's banks, and Shor, who was caught on camera giving PRSM leader and former President Igor Dodon a suspicious-looking bag.
Despite being the most popular candidate among the Moldovan diaspora in Russia and supported by the pro-Kremlin PSRM, Stoianoglo says he has no political affiliation and rejects accusations that he is "Moscow's man." He has rejected accusations of corruption, abuse of office, and illicit enrichment, saying that all the purported evidence has been fabricated by Sandu's administration.
SEE ALSO: Moldovan Police Accuse Pro-Russian Oligarch Of $39M Vote-Buying SchemeStoianoglo has absolved himself of some of the criticism, however, winning a case at the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights related to his suspension from the position of prosecutor-general.
Politically, Stoianoglo is hard to pigeonhole. While he is a member of a pro-EU coalition in parliament, he has sometimes taken pro-Russian positions -- for example, by refusing to vote for a resolution condemning communist-era atrocities. His reaction to the war in Ukraine has also been ambiguous: He expressed a "negative attitude" toward the conflict but did not directly condemn Russia for the invasion.
His approach to Moldova's drive to join the European Union has also been marked by prudence. While he boycotted the referendum on the EU constitution and has criticized the pace and implementation of EU-mandated reforms, he recently proposed that he sign with Sandu a joint declaration supporting Moldova's European path.
This ambiguity has led to accusations of political opportunism and hypocrisy. Despite his typically anti-EU stance, he is also a Romanian (and thus EU) citizen, and his daughter reportedly works at the European Central Bank.