Maia Sandu is supported by far-right unionists in Romania and is a sympathizer of Marshal Ion Antonescu. The narrative that tries to associate the President of the Republic of Moldova with a war criminal and fascism is promoted in the context of the election campaign underway in Chisinau and Sandu, who is considered the driving engine of PAS, is seen as the main threat by pro-Russian parties.
NEWS: "Unionists actively support the new president, Maia Sandu, who not only shares their visions of the union, but also holds a Romanian passport," the Russian website eadaily.com writes in an article about the Alliance for the Union of Romanians' participation in the parliamentary elections in the Republic of Moldova, entitled "In Moldova, neo-fascists tend to come to power, Bucharest warns." The article was also taken over in the Republic of Moldova by mejdurecie.md.According to the authors, "On the eve of Victory Day (May 9) she called the Nazi criminal Ion Antonescu “a remarkable historical figure, supported the position of the Romanian diplomat Daniel Ioniță who said that "Romanian soldiers who fought on the side of the fascists, fought for the reunification of the country "”.
NARRATIVES: 1. The union of the Republic of Moldova with Romania is a growing danger, including because 2. it is promoted by Maia Sandu, a radical politician, who supports and is supported by unionists, a neo-fascist trend.
LOCAL CONTEXT / ETHOS: A potential union of the Republic of Moldova with Romania remains a topic of election campaign in Chisinau, being one of the "scarecrows" used by pro-Russian parties and media.
Maia Sandu has always been described as a unionist by the pro-Russian forces and criticized by unionists for not openly supporting or doing more for their cause.
The flames were fanned again with the start of the campaign for snap parliamentary elections, in which the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, which created a party with the same name in the Republic of Moldova, intends to participate.
PURPOSE: To have Maia Sandu look as a radical politician
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: The unionist parties in the Republic of Moldova officially supported Maia Sandu in the second round of the 2020 presidential elections, after their candidates gather a smaller number of votes in the first round. Maia Sandu then competed with Igor Dodon, a supporter of Moldova's rapprochement with Russia and of Moldovenism, which favors the banning of unionist parties. That is why the options of the right-wing parties are absolutely explicable. However, the statement that the "unionists actively support" Maia Sandu is exaggerated, as she is often criticized by their representatives, as happened recently, after she laid flowers at a Soviet memorial on May 9th. The unionist parties, which intend to run separately in the July 11 elections, are, in fact, direct competitors of the Action and Solidarity Party, a party that supports Maia Sandu.
GRAIN OF TRUTH: Maia Sandu is a right-wing, pro-Western and pro-Romanian politician, respectively. Maia Sandu declared, indeed, in 2016, that in the case of a referendum on the union of the Republic of Moldova with Romania, she would vote in favor, but she is not a militant of this idea.Maia Sandu said in a televised interview in September 2018 (and not recently, on the eve of May 9, as mentioned by the Russian news agency) that "Ion Antonescu was a historical personality who can be talked about both in good and in bad terms”. These statements were harshly criticized by politicians and the pro-Russian press, even though she later claimed that they were intentionally misinterpreted. The Romanian Ambassador to Chisinau, Daniel Ioniță, praised the Romanian soldiers who died in the Second World War at a ceremony held on October 23, 2020. However, Maia Sandu had nothing to do with those statements.
THE NARRATIVES BENEFIT politicians and pro-Russian parties, especially the Party of Socialists, but also Moscow, as they are used to fuel anti-Romanian and anti-Western phobias and sentiments.
