And we thought U.S. politics was strange at the moment.
Moldovan presidential candidate Maia Sandu isn’t married. And apparently that’s a huge problem for a lot of people, including her country’s leading religious and political figures.
People running for president in Moldova should be married and campaign with their spouses, according to former President Vladimir Voronin, who is chairman of the communist party. Which is part of the reason why he said he refuses to even shake Sandu’s hand.
“She is not married, though everybody knows the rules of the presidential protocol: Appearance in public must be together with spouse,” he told a Moldovan television channel on Monday. “People who will vote for Sandu will make a great mistake. Moreover, let me say honestly – this is a betrayal of family values.”
He didn’t stop there. She is “the laughing stock, the sin and the national disgrace of Moldova,” he added.
Bishop Marchel, one of the Moldovan Orthodox Church leaders, also attacked Sandu. He reportedly issued a statement on Nov. 4 claiming that her “attitude toward Christian morality ... seems to diverge from normal principles.”
She even introduced a “noxious” encyclopedia, titled “Sex Life,” in Moldovan libraries while serving as education minister in 2013, he added.
But Sandu didn’t let these insults go unaddressed.
“I have never thought being a single woman is a shame,” she said. “Maybe it is a sin even to be a woman?”
Voronin did also call out Sandu’s opponent, Igor Dodon, who is known for wanting to cozy up to Russia once again.
But he implicitly made it clear that Dodon is a preferable choice to Sandu.
“Nobody is concealing that [Dodon] is indeed a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch,” Voronin said in the same interview.
While Sandu has campaigned on a pro-European Union platform, Dodon believes his views align with those of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
“America will wear red! Trump’s victory is the victory of American citizens on liberal riots,” he said Wednesday. “The Americans have elected a president who is a proponent of strong conservative and Christian values, who advocates for friendly relations with Russia.”
Moldova’s presidential election heads for a runoff vote on November 13.