Moldova Election Run-off Puts Capital Under Spotlight

In the second run-off round of local elections in the former Soviet country, Moldovan citizens on Sunday will select bosses for another 380 town halls.

In the first round, on October 20, voters elected 518 mayors in a race in which the pro-Russian Moldovan Socialist Party, PSRM, won the biggest number of votes in the country.

Most eyes are now on the outcome of the run-off in the capital, Chisinau, where the Socialist candidate, Ion Ceban, is battling the co-president of the pro-European ACUM bloc, Andrei Nastase.

Earlier, both Ceban and Nastase maintained a low profile and neither appeared on public TV debates.

In the past few days, however, they have made more appearances and brought out both the heavy rhetorical gunfire and their sharp ideological differences.

Nastase has accused the Socialists of being accomplices in real estate organised crime in Chisinau, saying he would deal with this issue as a priority.

"I'll get to the City Hall and quickly destroy the real estate mafia in there. The truth will be known to all. You will see that I and the people of this city are the ones who are right, not the PSRM, not [Socialist President] Igor Dodon, not Ion Ceban," Nastase told a debate on TV 8 station.

In reply, Ceban said he would sue Nastase and seek 41,000 euros in damages. "I will ask [in court] for the cost of the car he purchased this year, that Volvo of 41,000 euros or almost a million lei, and the money will be given to an auxiliary school," Ceban said.

President Dodon has warned that the government coalition deal between the Socialists and ACUM could collapse if such attacks continued.

"I am for continuing the parliamentary majority. But at least three things need to be clarified, and the first is about...