MOLDOVA – Moldovans vote in the second round of a crucial presidential election on Sunday, which could determine whether the post-Soviet country stays its course toward Europe or lurches back into the Kremlin’s orbit. Maia Sandu, the pro-Western president, is seeking reelection after guiding Moldova closer to the European Union than ever before while Russia’s war in Ukraine raged near its eastern border.

Sandu secured 42% of the first-round vote, held on the same day as a referendum on EU membership that passed by the thinnest of margins. Both votes were marred by a vast Kremlin-linked vote-buying scheme, which Sandu said amounted to an “unprecedented assault” on Moldova’s democracy. She faces Alexandr Stoianoglo, a former prosecutor general running for the pro-Russian Party of Socialists. If other Kremlin-friendly parties swing their support behind him, the second round will be extremely close.

In last Sunday’s presidential debate, Sandu – a Harvard-educated former World Bank official who has cut ties with Moscow – called Stoianoglo a “Trojan Horse” seeking to infiltrate the country’s capital, Chisinau, on the Kremlin’s behalf. Analysts say this is not merely rhetorical. Valeriu Pasha, director of WatchDog.MD, a think tank, told CNN that Sunday’s vote is about “whether we will have a president who is elected by citizens or someone who wins because Russian dirty money paid for it.”

Before last month’s votes, Ilan Shor, a Russian-backed oligarch, offered to pay people for working to elect a Russia-friendly candidate and stop the referendum passing. Sandu said the scheme sought to pay off some 300,000 voters – about 10% of the population. Despite polling at just over 10% before the election, Stoianoglo won more than 26% of first-round votes. Both the Kremlin and Shor have denied interference, but Moldovan officials have warned the second vote could also be targeted by similar schemes.

Apart from vote-buying, analysts say the first round revealed genuine opposition to Sandu, whose first term has been wracked by successive crises. “First there was the COVID-19 pandemic, then there was Russia’s war in Ukraine, then there was the gas crisis,” Maksim Samorukov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told CNN. (CNN) …[+]