CHISINAU (Reuters) - Moldova holds the second round of its presidential election on Sunday, pitting the incumbent, pro-Western President Maia Sandu, against former prosecutor general Alexandr Stoianoglo. Sandu won 42.49% in the first round, while Stoianoglo received 25.9%.
Here are some key facts about the two candidates.
MAIA SANDU
Sandu was born in 1972 in the village of Risipeni near the Romanian border. She obtained a master's degree in international relations in Chisinau and another in public policy after studying at Harvard University in the United States.
After a stint in the economy ministry, she worked as an economist at the World Bank's office in Chisinau for about seven years and later was an adviser to the World Bank's executive director.
After two years in Washington, she returned to Moldova in 2012 to become education minister, kicking off what she has described as a "rollercoaster journey" that ended up in her becoming the country's first woman to serve as president.
In 2016 she formed her own liberal, free-market political party and was narrowly defeated at a presidential election that year. She won the next election against Moscow-backed incumbent Igor Dodon in 2020. Her party went on to win a landslide victory at a parliamentary election the next year.
Initially trying to build cautiously pragmatic relations with Russia, she sharply switched to a strongly pro-EU policy when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Her critics say she has cultivated close ties with the West, but accuse her of failing to manage the country's struggling economy and high inflation or to push forward judicial reforms.
ALEXANDR STOIANOGLO
Stoianoglo, an ethnic Gagauz, was born in 1967 in Comrat, the capital of the Gagauzia autonomous region in Moldova's south. The Gagauz are an Orthodox Christian ethnic Turkish community of around 150,000 people. They are Moldova's second largest ethnic minority, after Ukrainians. The region of Gagauzia is traditionally pro-Russian and has been at odds with Sandu's pro-Western government.
Stoianoglo studied law at Moldova's State University. He served as a prosecutor for the Gagauz autonomy from 1995 to 2001 and then became a deputy to Moldova's prosecutor general. Stoianoglo was a lawmaker from 2009 to 2014. He was appointed prosecutor general in 2019.
After Sandu's election in 2020, she voiced unhappiness with Stoianoglo as prosecutor general over what she said was a failure to investigate high-profile criminal and corruption cases involving Moldova's oligarchs. He dismissed that criticism as political interference.
Stoianoglo was suspended from office in 2021 and arrested during an investigation on charges of corruption and abuse of power. He was ultimately dismissed as prosecutor general in September 2023.
However, the government failed to produce convincing evidence of his wrongdoing. In 2023, Stoianoglo won a case against Moldova in the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled that his right to a fair trial had been violated.
Stoianoglo's presidential bid is supported by the traditionally pro-Russian Party of Socialists and the party's leader, ex-president Igor Dodon.
Stoianoglo boycotted a referendum for Moldova's integration into the EU held simultaneously with the presidential vote, which passed by a thin margin. He criticised the referendum as "Sandu's attempt to save her political ratings" and said the results were so controversial "that it can hardly be recognised and legal."
In a recent media interview, Stoianoglo said Moldova's interests lie with both the West and the East.