After months of political deadlock and constitutional turmoil that has left Moldova without a formal Prime Minister since December 2020, President Maia Sandu was able to call a snap election on April 28th. Although Sandu won the presidency in November 2020, she has been restricted by a fractured parliament elected in February 2019 under her pro-Russian predecessor, Igor Dodon. The current EU-orientated president has, therefore, been unable to replace former Prime Minister Ion Chicu, who resigned a day before she took office. This frustration led her to call for an early election, but Moldova’s Constitutional Court initially ruled that parliament could not be dissolved during a state of emergency, as was introduced at the end of March ostensibly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest twist to this complicated tale came when the court ruled that the state of emergency itself was illegal, having been proposed by the current interim prime minister who doesn’t have the “full powers” of the office which are required to do so. Thus, after months of political and judicial battles, citizens of the former Soviet republic will head to the polls on July 11th and elect to face east or west.

While Sandu praised the development as an opportunity to “bring an end to the chaos” and “elect a parliament that truly represents Moldovans,” her opponent and predecessor Igor Dodon sought to frame the election in international terms. On the day the election was announced, the leader of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova met with U.S. ambassador Dereck Hogan and warned him that any attempt to use the country in its game against Russia could destabilize Europe’s poorest nation. “If [Sandu’s Action and Solidarity Party] win the early elections, our country will become fully governed from abroad,” Dodon declared, stoking fears of attacks on the Russian language and the rights of national minorities. If this happened, he warned, conflict with the Russified breakaway de-facto state of Transnistria would become a genuine possibility.

Although the question of Moldova’s identity has plagued it since it gained statehood at the fall of the Soviet Union, the recent escalation of tensions between its neighbours Ukraine and Russia has served as a reminder of the stakes involved. Moscow was unwilling to let Ukraine pivot towards NATO, and may similarly loath to see Moldova align itself more closely with the EU. While the latest iteration of Moldova’s national soul-searching will ultimately be answered by the citizens in July, it is notable that Dodon feels it politically expedient to frame the election in such international terms. If Russia’s recent military mobilization on Ukraine’s borders serves to drive Ukraine’s neighbour into the arms of Moscow, it may signal a perceived shift in the regional balance of power.

In the regional game of grand strategy, Transnistria serves two major functions in the interests of the Kremlin. Firstly, a Russian peacekeeping force of up to 2,000 soldiers, including those preparing for rotation, allows for a military presence bordering both Moldova to the west and Ukraine to the east. Russia recently rejected Maia Sandu’s proposal to remove these peacekeepers. Secondly, its status prevents Moldova from freely pursuing its destiny outside of Moscow’s influence. However, despite Dodon’s comments warning of ethnically-motivated conflict, this would not originate from the people. Transnistria is not an ethnic conflict in the way that other unrecognized states are, and, according to a diplomatic source in Chisinau, there is no desire for renewed violence. Its people are not overwhelmingly pro-Russian and indeed many have Romanian passports to give them access to the EU. The problem is more a political one, given that all UN member states consider Transnistria to be part of Moldova, and yet Chisinau does not control the territory.

Moldovan politics has become fractured and its offices impotent in recent months, with its branches of government divided by the polarizing question of which direction the country should face. Although its geopolitical future will likely be a defining feature of the upcoming elections, especially in the context of recent tensions between Ukraine and Russia, no great progress in either direction will be possible while the territory and the electorate remain divided. The key to the impasse lies closer to home, in these factious communities that parliamentarians too vehemently represent. Although Dodon is right to warn that lurching westward could destabilize the country, the solution may be to fight the election and daily politics not on geopolitics but on the issues faced by the citizens of Europe’s poorest country.