The possible victory of the pro-Western Maia Sandu in the presidential elections in Moldova does not yet mean a radical turn of the country from Russia, since this will require the support of parliament.
The PolitNavigator correspondent reports this in an interview published by Komsomolskaya Pravda, said the director of the Institute of CIS Countries, State Duma deputy Konstantin Zatulin, answering the question of what to expect for Russia if Sandu becomes president.
The publication’s interlocutor noted that the President of Moldova does not have great powers and can hardly do anything serious without support in parliament.
“We have already witnessed how Dodon was president, but at the same time he could not do anything. I couldn’t even travel abroad without permission. I couldn’t appoint an ambassador or sign any document. Because parliament and the government blocked it,” Zatulin recalled.
At the same time, he added that the presidential elections are an important stage, but not the end of the struggle for power in Moldova, and much depends on whether before the second round it will be possible to come to an agreement with those who dropped out of the struggle.
“But here there are different options. Politicians in Moldova are not some beautiful-minded idealists, with rare exceptions. Maybe just with the exception of Sandu, who is a pro-Western idealist. These are people who tend to negotiate and run from one camp to another.
More recently, the third number in the elections, Renato Usatii, was considered a pro-Russian politician who fights for integration with Moscow and so on. Now he is in opposition to Dodon. But his electorate still has pro-Russian sympathies. And this is 16-17 percent in these elections,” the deputy said
As PolitNavigator reported, in the first round Sandu overtook current President Igor Dodon. This result became a sensation, since all polls predicted a second round, but Dodon would take first place in the first.