Alexandr Stoianoglo, who faces pro-European incumbent Maia Sandu in the runoff of Moldova's presidential election early next month, has defended acquiring Romanian citizenship and lashed out at media revelations that his daughters have been working in Western Europe.
The U.S.-educated Sandu won the first round on October 20 with 42.49 percent of the vote, while Socialist Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor-general facing accusations of corruption, garnered 25.9 percent, final results showed, after a campaign marred by allegations of vote-buying as well as manipulation and disinformation campaigns allegedly orchestrated by Russia.
The runoff is scheduled for November 3.
SEE ALSO: How Is The Kremlin Meddling In 2024 Elections? Here Are 5 Tactics.
Most of Moldova was part of Romania until the end of World War II and many Moldovans also hold Romanian citizenship, which gives them the opportunity to travel freely to the European Union and work there.
Stoianoglo boycotted a referendum for Moldova's integration into the EU held simultaneously with the presidential vote, which passed by a wafer-thin margin at 50.38 percent.
While the referendum has no legal impact on Moldova's negotiations with Brussels, the very narrow approval margin came as a surprise to many observers, who had expected a more decisive vote in favor of the former Soviet republic's path toward Euro-Atlantic integration and departure from decades of Russian influence.
After media reports revealed that Stoianoglo possesses a Romanian passport, he argued that he obtained it in 2019 in an "apolitical context," without elaborating.
SEE ALSO: In Fugitive Oligarch's Long Shadow, Free Trips Recruit Hundreds Of Young Moldovans To Love RussiaStoianoglo also lashed out at the media for revealing that both his daughters are working in the West.
According to public data on social media, his older daughter, Cristina, acquired a master's degree in economics and business in Vienna and works for a Switzerland-based company, while the younger one, Corina, studied at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and works for the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, Germany.
She appears in a photo on LinkedIn in the company of ECB President Christine Lagarde.
In a reaction on social media on October 23, Stoianoglo claimed incorrectly that his daughters studied and were working in Europe because "this is a right that every Moldovan youth has."
Moldova is one of Europe's poorest countries with a sizeable Russian minority and a Moscow-backed separatist region, Transdniester, located on the left bank of the Dniester River.