When politician Maia Sandu is campaigning in her tiny country, Moldova, her favorite word is “honest”. She uses it to describe “the majority” of her fellow citizens more than herself. “Honest people can only be promoted by citizens,” she says. This helped her be elected president last year and again on July 11, when her party won a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections. The former Harvard-trained World Bank economist is, according to a political analyst, the first person in Moldova to rise to power “with a reputation for honesty”.

While she says that the honesty of officials is the key to fighting corruption, Sandu also points out that it is a way out of Moldova’s geopolitical chaos. As in many former Soviet republics, Moldova’s 2.6 million inhabitants remain divided between Russia and the West – three decades after independence. A fifth of people speak Russian as their first language and are influenced by Russian television. She, like similar reformers in Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia and Belarus, understands that the best escape from this tired debate lies in the creation of an honest and transparent democratic state with independent courts that simply serve the people.

His own honesty has now helped bring his Action and Solidarity Party to power. Ms Sandu and the party hope to fix one of Europe’s most corrupt and poorest countries, sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine. In June, the European Union pledged 600 million euros ($ 707 million) in aid if reforms are implemented. So far, Russia has lost many of its political allies in Moldova, despite having 1,500 troops in the country’s breakaway region of Transnistria. President Vladimir Putin could heat up this “frozen conflict” to cause problems.

Ms. Sandu, the country’s first female head of state, is in a race to clean up the government, including preventing corruption. As Minister of Education between 2012 and 2015, she succeeded in preventing cheating on baccalaureate exams by placing cameras in exam rooms. According to one estimate, corruption in education has been halved.

His party’s website says the current system of governance “does not reward the honest.” But Ms. Sandu promises to “appoint an honest prime minister, honest judges and honest people in all government bodies.” It’s a word she keeps repeating. Maybe because, in his appeal to people’s desire for truth and trust, he can have real power.