"Some political forces want to use geopolitical issues to avoid corruption issues," says Moldova's President Maia Sandu.

"You want to scare people with it." What she means by that illustrates a statement by the former communist president Vladimir Voronin.

If Sandu's party wins the parliamentary elections on July 11th, "NATO soldiers will come here and black and brown children will be born here and not only those with white skin".

Voronin asked on a television program last week whether the voters really wanted that.

Together with former Socialist President Igor Dodon, who was voted out of office in November of last year, he runs an electoral list of Soviet-nostalgic parties oriented towards Russia.

One of their election slogans is: "No to foreign rule!"

Reinhard Veser

Editor in politics.

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    This is directed against Sandu, who has always advocated Moldova's orientation towards the EU.

    She continues to adhere to this: "I want the Moldovans to have the same standard of living as in EU countries and to enjoy the same basic rights and freedoms as the people in the EU," says Sandu, speaking to Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin this Wednesday and Chancellor Angela Merkel meets, in conversation with the FAZ. But during the election campaign “we want to concentrate on domestic political issues,” she says.

    Because geopolitics distracts from the real issue: “Corruption is our biggest problem.

    Because of corruption, people cannot develop and realize their plans.

    Because of the corruption, we have no money for better education and better infrastructure. "

    "Have the chance to clean the parliament"

    The 49-year-old president has been working towards an early parliamentary election since her election victory six months ago. Because the current Moldovan parliament and thus also the government are dominated by those forces that have had the country - one of the poorest in Europe - under control: the socialists Dodons and the remnants of the party of the fugitive oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc, who will be ten years old until the summer of 2019 was informal ruler of the country and was "pro-western". The way to a new election was difficult. Before the presidential election, all parties had voted in favor, but since his defeat Dodon tried by all means to prevent the election. His people wanted to declare a state of emergency in parliament and remove the constitutional court that had paved the way for elections.

    Even if she expects a dirty election campaign in view of this background, Sandu is optimistic: "We have the chance to cleanse Parliament," she says. “I hope that those voters who voted for me will now vote for honest candidates.” However, the reform forces only have a chance of their own majority if they succeed in addressing at least part of the population groups that are traditionally oriented towards Russia are.

    When it comes to its foreign policy orientation, Moldovan society is divided into two roughly equal parts. Surveys should be treated with great caution in Moldova. But they suggest that Sandu's party's chances have increased due to the resentment the socialists have drawn in trying to prevent the general election and curtail the victor's powers immediately after the presidential election.

    After the election, Sandu hopes to be able to implement the projects with a government close to her that she was unable to tackle against an anti-reform majority in parliament and the then President Dodon when she was Prime Minister for five months in 2019. Above all, this includes cleaning the judiciary from corruption. According to Sandu, the new parliament is supposed to pass a law that provides for the review of all judges and prosecutors. The dedicated committee of Moldovan citizens is to be assembled and monitored by an international mission made up of former judges and prosecutors. The President is also hoping for technical support from the EU when it comes to rebuilding the judiciary, such as training.

    Sandu sees the creation of stable state institutions that are capable of acting as an essential prerequisite for the sustainable development of Moldova. But it is clear to her that the voters also expect something else from her: “We need rapid economic progress.” The consequences of the pandemic, which in relation to the number of inhabitants in Moldova claimed many more victims than in Germany, caused the existential hardship of many people still enlarged.

    Sandu is currently having a reconstruction package drawn up - but she does not hope that it will be implemented before the election: the government has done nothing to support the economy. The reconstruction package, for which Moldova relies on foreign financial aid, is intended, on the one hand, to directly alleviate the worst plight of the poorest sections of the population. "On the other hand, we see it as an opportunity to transform the economy towards more digitization and online services."