Seven years after moving to Ireland, Natalia Stirbu still goes home to Moldova to vote -- part of a powerful diaspora whose ballots could prove decisive in the small country's battle between Moscow and the West.

Moldovans living abroad already propelled pro-European Union President Maia Sandu to re-election victory last year.

Now they could become crucial to her ability to push one of Europe's poorest countries towards EU membership, as Moldovans prepare to go to the polls in parliamentary elections on September 28 made tense by accusations of Russian meddling.

"I tell everyone to go to vote because it's the only way we can be part of the European family," Stirbu, a 46-year-old event organiser, told AFP.

But the influence of the diaspora has not gone unnoticed by the pro-Russian opposi

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