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Maia Sandu, the pro-European candidate, and Igor Dodon, the pro-European candidate, fight Sunday in the second round of the presidential elections in the Republic of Moldova, a repeat of the final four years ago. The first round was won by Maia Sandu with a difference of almost 4 percent, but the distance is negligible. Maia Sandu won the first round because of the situation: Renato Usatii, another pro-Russian candidate, an outspoken opponent of President Igor Dodon, won 17%, exactly breaking with Dodon’s group. Basically, the Usatii voters represent an important milestone in the presidential final. Although he did not explicitly show his support for Maia Sandu, Renato Usatii urged his electorate to vote against Igor Dodon, whom he called “the symbol of corruption.” In turn, Ustaîi was involved in various corruption scandals and even assassinations.
Some of the people who put the stamp on Usatii will be staying home on Sunday, disappointed that their favorite didn’t catch the final. Some will go to Dodon, with a pro-Russian structure, totally incompatible with the pro-European leadership. And another party will listen to Usatii’s impulse and vote with Maia Sandu, considering Dodon unacceptable. In fact, Maia Sandu’s strategy focused on explosive attacks against Igor Dodon, whom she considers far more damaging than Vladimir Plahotniuc, the oligarch who fled the Republic of Moldova. Plahotniuc is detested by all Moldovan society. Between the two rounds, Maia Sandu avoided harsh pro-Unionist and pro-European messages precisely so as not to completely eliminate Usatii’s electorate, Adevărul’s diplomatic sources claim. However, pro-union voters are on their side, proof that, in the first round, Dorin Chirtoacă and Octavian Ţîcu, the candidates who demanded union with Romania, obtained together only 3%.
In the first round, Maia Sandu was voted massively by Moldovans from the western diaspora, whom Igor Dodon arrogantly and insultingly called a “parallel electorate”. To achieve victory in the second round, Maia Sandu needs an even greater mobilization of the Western diaspora, as the Russian diaspora will be largely on the side of Igor Dodon. According to the cited sources, Dodon promised Moldovans working illegally in Russia that they will get the right to work if they vote for him. Some will put the stamp on Dodon, motivated by the electoral promise, but other Moldovan citizens in Russia will not vote, so as not to leave a trace that they are in Russia, for fear of being arrested, precisely because they work in black. About 700,000 Moldovans live in Russia, and in the first round the preferred one is Renato Usatii. Instead, more than 1 million Moldovan citizens work in Western countries, voting en masse for Maia Sandu, the candidate also supported by Romania through the voice of President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Ludovic Orban.
A key element of the presidential final will be the presence at the polls, both nationally and internationally. Maia Sandu will win in the following scenario: high turnout in the Republic of Moldova, high turnout in the western diaspora, and attracting a substantial part of the electorate loyal to Usatii. In addition, Maia Sandu has public perception on her side in the wake of the unexpected first round victory. Moldovan society is driven by the stage success achieved by the pro-Western candidate.
Instead, the socialist Dodon is betting on Russia, whether we are talking about the pro-Russian national electorate, the Muscovite diaspora or the voters of Transnistria. Diplomatic sources claim for Truth that Dodon negotiated in the Kremlin the support of the Transnistrian network, although the leaders of Tiraspol (led by Moscow) were not very happy to support a candidate who leaves with a second chance. In fact, in the first round, Dodon did not get a resounding victory in Transnistria, he estimated. Tiraspol’s electoral spree and electoral tourism will be the barometer of electoral fraud. In the first round, there were some mind-blowing scenes at the Transnistrian polling stations. “Where do we get our money from now?” Asked some voters as soon as they put their ballot in the polls, not knowing they were registered while mimicking democracy.
A new victory for Igor Dodon could trigger massive street protests in Chisinau, modeled after the Belarusian uprising, where the pro-Russian dictator Lukashenko does not want to relinquish power after a quarter of a century. And Maia Sandu’s victory could be challenged in the streets by the socialist camp, as analysts expect a knife-edge victory. A victory for Maia Sandu would put the Republic of Moldova on the European path and unfreeze the relationship with Romania. Instead, a new success achieved by Dodon would isolate Chisinau from both Western Europe and Romania.
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