Moldova votes for a new parliament Sunday with the election likely to place the impoverished nation firmly on a pro-European path

Moldova votes for a new parliament Sunday with the election likely to place the impoverished nation firmly on a pro-European path, the third ex-Soviet republic to turn away from Moscow’s influence in little over a year. Voters will choose deputies for a 101-seat parliament that will then elect the president of the country sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania, considered to be Europe’s poorest, with per capita gross national product barely 600 dollars. The Communists, who hold 71 seats in the outgoing chamber, are considered the front-runners in a field of nine parties, two blocs and a dozen individual candidates. Like their main competitors—the centrist Bloc for Democratic Moldova (BDM) and nationalist Popular Christian Democratic Party (PPCD) -- the Communists avow themselves as pro-Western, with voters having a choice between the degrees of Eurocentrism. With BDM in favor of keeping closer ties to Russia and the PPCD favoring Moldovan entry into the NATO alliance, the Communists find themselves in the middle of the road, garnering between 49 and 62 percent of voters’ support, according to the latest opinion polls. Although the Communists came to power in 2001 on a pro-Russia ticket, they have since done an about-face, partly because of disagreements with Moscow over its troop presence in the separatist region of Trandsdniestr, which Russia has tacitly supported ever since it broke away from Chisinau after a short war in 1992. Tensions between Chisinau and Moscow have increased ahead of the vote, with Moldova refusing entry to dozens of Russians who presented themselves as election observers on the eve of the poll.