CHISINAU, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Moldovans vote on Sunday on whether to elect their president directly, a change that Moldova's West-leaning ruling coalition says would bring an end to chronic political paralysis.
Opinion polls suggest there will a strong vote in favour of ditching the present system, under which the head of state is selected by parliament, despite a call by the opposition Communists for a boycott of the referendum.
Moldova has had no full-time president for 18 months, with its ruling four-party Alliance for European Integration unable to muster enough parliamentary votes to install a head of state despite ousting the communists from power in July 2009.
The alliance says this has held up reforms that are urgently needed to bring one of Europe's poorest countries into the mainstream. It promises direct elections for president and parliament on Nov. 14 if the referendum succeeds.
Moldova, a former Soviet state of 3.5 million people tucked between Romania and Ukraine, has an unresolved 20-year-old standoff with separatists on part of its territory, and is on poor terms with Russia, which supplies most of its oil and gas.
The average income is about $270 per month and more than 430,000 Moldovans work abroad to support families back home. The EU says Moldova needs major reforms if it is to be regarded as a possible candidate for bloc membership.
Corruption is rampant, the judiciary, state security and police are politicised and the media tends to toe the line of whoever is in power.
Parliament speaker Mihai Ghimpu, one of the alliance's leading figures, has served as acting president. If the referendum succeeds, Prime Minister Vlad Filat and charismatic centre-left politician Marian Lupu would be among the favourites to win election as president.
Former president Vladimir Voronin, who in 2001 became the first elected communist head of state in Europe since the breakup of the Soviet Union, has called the referendum a "trap" and called on his followers to boycott it.
The public remains divided. Vera Isayko, a woman in her 60s selling fruit and vegetables from a roadside stall in the village of Cosnita, backed Voronin and his boycott call.
"I'll not be turning out for the vote," she told Reuters on Saturday. "If that Ghimpu comes here, I'll burst one of these watermelons over his head."
In the same village, Gennady Glog, gathering cobs of corn in his garden, said: "I'll be voting because the future of my children hangs on it, and I will vote for direct elections. I have two small daughters. We need to change."
Polling stations open at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) and close at 9 p.m. Preliminary results could come by 00:30 a.m. on Monday (2130 GMT on Sunday). (Additional reporting by Richard Balmforth and Sergiy Karazy; Editing by Peter Graff)
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