https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/10/moldova-and-georgia-face-crucial-elections-and-diverging-paths
In two days, Moldova will go to the polls. It is a small, low-income post-Soviet country with a well-earned reputation as a major producer of world-class wine. It is a candidate for EU membership, invited to begin accession talks. In 2022, after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, the country, which had spent its 30 years of independence carefully pursuing a “friendship with everyone” policy, made a geopolitical turn and declared its desire to join the EU. In June this year, the EU formally opened talks on Moldova’s future membership, and in Chisinau they cautiously predict that the country could become a full member of the bloc in 2030.
The current elections are Moldova’s first serious test on this path. The current head of state, Maia Sandu, appears to be the favorite in the campaign, but over the four years of her presidency, voters have accumulated many complaints about her. Problems may also come from an unexpected direction: a referendum on Moldova’s accession to the EU is taking place simultaneously with the presidential elections. Any result other than a confident victory for EU supporters could seriously undermine Sandu’s position and call into question Moldova’s further European integration. The name of one of the main heroes of the election campaign is not on the ballot, but it is absolutely impossible to talk about Moldovan politics and not mention him at least once. We are talking about Ilan Shor, an oligarch sentenced to 15 years in prison in Moldova. Shor now lives in Moscow, where he founded the Pobeda (Victory) bloc of parties and regularly holds its congresses. Shor has fertile ground for his activities in Moldova: sentiment towards Russia in society is significant, and many Moldovans in everyday conversations associate the same rise in prices with the current authorities’ turn “away from Moscow.”
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