I have some semi-educated thoughts on this (yes, hello, I’m still alive) and literally no one around me cares, nor does the Australia media, it seems, so please allow me to indulge myself for a minute…

Moldova, much like Ukraine and the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, et al) has suffered a serious identity crisis ever since the USSR fell, arguably owing to linguistic/cultural tensions that go back way before that.

In general, the push and pull has been between the pro-Russian camp (Transnistria and its allies ) and the supposedly pro-European but really pro-Romanian faction.

And I don’t say that lightly. Because what is interesting is that, unlike say Ukraine (where Russian is being erased and replaced by Ukrainian), the pro-“European” camp would quite literally be happy to erase their own country, if it was politically tenable.

They’ve already done this by removing any references to a separate Moldovan language/dialect, and even by demanding that Ukraine deprecate Moldovan (because there is a sizable Moldovan minority in Ukraine) in favour of “Romanian”.

That latter point has really only happened since Sandhu and Zelenskyy both took office.

This comes after they deprecated the Cyrillic script (historically the main writing script in Moldova, which resulted in the destruction of previous “elites”, exactly as Ataturk did in Turkey) soon after independence.

On Reddit, the Moldovan sub is dominated by Anglos, despite the vast, vast majority of locals there not speaking any English. They constantly shit on the “country hicks” (using the equivalent slur) for not voting as they are told, and wanting to retain things like the Cyrillic script, and references to a Moldovan linguistic and cultural identity.

And that’s where it gets really interesting: none of these pro-Romanian policies have popular support. None of them. From extinguishing the Moldovan identity to changing the script to even unifying with Romania in the future. But you wouldn’t know that from listening to Sandhu speak. Or from reading Wikipedia or Reddit. And hell, even their Eurovision entry a couple of years back was pushing this weird “pan-Romanian” idea, and selling that their is no real, measurable difference between Chișinău and Bucharest. Which is odd, considering that even in the days of Dragostea Din Tei (written in Romanian, by a Moldova group living in Romania) no one would have dared to claim that…

That is the context of this referendum, which she barely got over the line, and of the runoff presidential elections there: an extremely pro-Romanian globalist who the media pretends is “liberal and pro-EU”, vs the so-called “backward conservatives” who apparently only exist in rural areas, and are “bought out” or “brainwashed” by Russian propaganda.

It ain’t great. And shit, I say all this as a Europhile and supporter of both Ukrainian and Moldovan independence.

Something about all this, ever since Sandhu got in and became “popular” in the West, just ain’t right.

But, much like with the Voice Ref in Aus last year, I don’t hold my breath for either Wiki, or Reddit, to acknowledge that.

TL;dr she’s a pro-Romanian globalist, and this is all much more murky and complicated than most sources are making it out to be…

I have some semi-educated thoughts on this (yes, hello, I’m still alive) and literally no one around me cares, nor does the Australia media, it seem, so please allow me to indulge myself for a minute…

Moldova, much like Ukraine and the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, et al) has suffered a serious identity crisis ever since the USSR fell, arguably owing to linguistic/cultural tensions that go back way before that.

In general, the push and pull has been between the pro-Russian camp (Transnistria and its allies ) and the supposedly pro-European but really pro-Romanian faction.

And I don’t say that lightly. Because what is interesting is that, unlike say Ukraine (where Russian is being erased and replaced by Ukrainian), the pro-“European” camp would quite literally be happy to erase their own country, if it was politically tenable.

They’ve already done this by removing any references to a separate Moldovan language/dialect, and even by demanding that Ukraine deprecate Moldovan (because there is a sizable Moldovan minority in Ukraine) in favour of “Romanian”.

That latter point has really only happened since Sandhu and Zelenskyy both took office.

This comes after they deprecated the Cyrillic script (historically the main writing script in Moldova, which resulted in the destruction of previous “elites”, exactly as Ataturk did in Turkey) soon after independence.

On Reddit, the Moldovan sub is dominated by Anglos, despite the vast, vast majority of locals there not speaking any English. They constantly shit on the “country hicks” (using the equivalent slur) for not voting as they are told, and wanting to retain things like the Cyrillic script, and references to a Moldovan linguistic and cultural identity.

And that’s where it gets really interesting: none of these pro-Romanian policies have popular support. None of them. From extinguishing the Moldovan identity to changing the script to even unifying with Romania in the future. But you wouldn’t know that from listening to Sandhu speak. Or from reading Wikipedia or Reddit. And hell, even their Eurovision entry a couple of years back was pushing this weird “pan-Romanian” idea, and selling that their is no real, measurable difference between Chișinău and Bucharest. Which is odd, considering that even in the days of Dragostea Din Tei (written in Romanian, by a Moldova group living in Romania) no one would have dared to claim that…

That is the context of this referendum, which she barely got over the line, and of the runoff presidential elections there: an extremely pro-Romanian globalist who the media pretends is “liberal and pro-EU”, vs the so-called “backward conservatives” who apparently only exist in rural areas, and are “bought out” or “brainwashed” by Russian propaganda.

It ain’t great. And shit, I say all this as a Europhile and supporter of both Ukrainian and Moldovan independence.

Something about all this, ever since Sandhu got in and became “popular” in the West, just ain’t right.

But, much like with the Voice Ref in Aus last year, I don’t hold my breath for either Wiki, or Reddit, to acknowledge that.

TL;dr she’s a pro-Romanian globalist, and this is all much more murky and complicated than most sources are making it out to be…