Maia Sandu, President of Moldova (Elected on Nov 15, 2020 with 57.7%)

Maia Sandu (born 24 May 1972) is a Moldovan politician and the current President of Moldova since 24 December 2020. She is the former leader of the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) and former Prime Minister of Moldova from 8 June 2019 until 14 November 2019.[3] On 12 November 2019, Sandu’s government fell after a vote of no-confidence, with 63 (deputies from PSRM and PDM) of the 101 MPs having voted on the motion submitted by the PSRM.[4][5]

Sandu was Minister of Education from 2012 to 2015 and member of the Parliament of Moldova from 2014 to 2015, and again in 2019.[6][7][8] She was selected as the joint candidate of the pro-European PPDA and PAS parties for President of Moldova in the 2016 election. However, she was defeated in the subsequent runoff by the pro-Russian PSRM candidate, Igor Dodon, losing the popular vote by a margin of 48% to 52%. In a rematch between Dodon and Sandu in the 2020 election, she won the subsequent runoff, 58% to 42%. She is the first female president of Moldova.

Igor Dodon, Former President of Moldova (elected on Nov 13, 2013)

Igor Dodon, born 18 February 1975, is a Moldovan politician who has been President of Moldova since 23 December 2016. Previously he was leader of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova. He served as Minister of Trade and Economics in the communist governments of Vasile Tarlev and Zinaida Greceanîi from September 2006 to September 2009 and was a member of the Parliament of Moldova from 2009 to 2016.

Dodon was appointed to the post of Associate Minister of Trade and Economics in May 2005, during the second Tarlev Cabinet. He assumed the position of Minister of Trade and Economics in September 2006. He held the position until September 2009, when the government of Zinaida Greceanîi ended. Dodon also held the post of Associate Prime Minister under Greceanîi from 2008 until 2009.

In June 2011, Dodon lost to Dorin Chirtoacă in the election for mayor of Chișinău. He took 49.4% of the vote.

In November 2011, Dodon left the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) citing hopes that a deal could be worked out with the ruling Alliance for European Integration to elect a president and end a constitutional crisis that had dragged on since the resignation of Vladimir Voronin in 2009. Greceanîi and Veronica Abramciuc left at the same time. On 18 December 2011, Dodon joined the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM) and was elected chairman of the party.

On 16 March 2012, three former communists (Dodon, Greceanîi and Abramciuc) voted for the Alliance for European Integration (AIE) candidate Nicolae Timofti as President of Moldova. Later, Dodon stated that he regretted his vote for Timofti.

After he was elected as the President of Moldova, due to specifics of Moldovan law, Dodon resigned as PSRM chairman and left the party, being replaced by Zinaida Greceanîi as interim leader.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Dodon

Nicolae Vasile Timofti, Former President of Moldova (elected on Mar 16, 2012)

Originally from the village Ciutulesti, Soroca judetz. His parents are originally from the Cahul judetz, father – Vasile Tudor Timofti, Gotesti village, mother – Elena Petru Timofti (Bujac), Ciobalaccia village.

His grandfather Tudor Timofti was forced to withdraw to the mines of Donbas in the ’40 under pressure of being murdered by the “new power”, and came back to Moldova in 1946, without having the right to go to his homeland. He moves to Ciutulesti with his entire family, where on December 22nd 1948 Nicolae Timofti is born. At the beginning of the year 1949 the whole family moves to the town Floresti, Soroca judetz. On July 6th, 1949 Tudor Timofti, his wife and four children are deported to the region Amur where T. Timofti dies in 1953.

In the family of Elena and Vasile Timofti five children were raised. After general school in Floresti, Nicolae Timofti graduates the Faculty of Law within Moldova’s State University (1967 – 1972), finishes military service (1972 – 1974) with the title of lieutenant – officer and superior lieutenant.

After military service N. Timofti works as a superior consultant for the Ministry of Justice. On April 11th, 1976 he is elected judge in the former Frunze raion of the city Chisinau, where he is transferred from on April 10th, 1980 as a judge at the Supreme Court of Justice. In June 1990 he is elected vicepresident of the Supreme Court – President of the Penal College.

After the justice system reform in 1996 he is named President of the Appeal Court and dismissed from office in December 2001, without any grounds. Since 1996 up to the present he is the President of the Judges’ Association from Moldova.

All along his career he has affirmed himself as a good professional, a fair and impartial judge, cautious organizer, receptive to everything new. For the shown principles the country’s leaders haven’t always favoured him.

He actively participated in the judicial and law reform, being a member of the Coordinating Council for the judicial and law reform and member of Magistrate Superior Council. He participated actively in the elaboration of the new laws together with his colleagues, laws that form the basis of the new judicial system.

He is known to be a person with progressive, pro European views and one who pleads for a society based on democratic principles and a market economy, for a lawful state, in which human rights are guaranteed and protected in reality.

In October 1996 he is decorated with the order “Gloria Muncii” and in December 1998 he is given the title “Om emerit”.

Wife – Margareta Timofti, is the chairwoman of the public relations department of the national children’s library “Ion Creanga”.

He has three sons : Alexei (1977), Nicolae (1980), Stefan (1989).

Vladimir Nicolae Voronin, Former President of Moldova

Vladimir Nicolae Voronin, President of Moldova

Born May 25, 1941 (Russian: Владимир Николаевич Воронин,Vladimir Nikolaevich Voronin) is a Moldovan communist politician, and the current President of the Republic of Moldova.

Voronin was born in the village Corjova, Dubăsari, in Transnistria. He graduated the Co-operative College of Chişinău (1961), the Soviet Union Institute for Food Industry (1971), the Academy of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1983), and the Academy of the Ministry of Home Affairs (Interior) of the Soviet Union (1991).

He began working in 1961 as the head of the bakery in the town of Criuleni. From 1966 until 1971, Voronin held the offices of vice-director of the bread factory in Criuleni and head of the bread factory in Dubăsari.

For the next ten years, he was active in the state administration of the Moldavian SSR, being in turn a member of the Dubăsari and Ungheni township executive committees, of the Ungheni District Executive Committee, and, starting 1983, inspector and vice-director of the Organization Section of the Central Committee of the Moldavian branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1985, he was appointed head of section in the Council of Ministers of the Moldavian SSR. Between 1985 and 1989, Voronin worked as first-secretary of the Bender (Tighina) Town Committee of the Communist Party. In 1989 and 1990, he held the office of the Minister of Home Affairs of the Moldavian SSR. In this capacity he advocated against the use of force to quell the anti-Soviet popular demonstrations of November 7 and 10th 1989. Voronin was also a member of the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR of 10th and 11th legislatures.

In 1993, Voronin became the co-president of the Organizational Committee for the creation of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM). In 1994 he was elected as First Secretary of the PCRM. In the same year, he was candidate for the post of President of the now-independent Republic of Moldova. In March 1998, Vladimir Voronin was elected as Member of the Parliament, and served as member of its Permanent Bureau, and as president of the PCRM parliamentary faction.
In February 2001, he was again elected Member of the Parliament (the 15th legislature since the creation of Moldavian SSR in 1940).

As President

He has been elected President of the Republic of Moldova by the Parliament on April 7, 2001. Politically, Voronin has maintained his commitment to the reduction of Moldova’s chronic poverty by allocating more resources to social safety net items such as health, education, and increasing pensions and salaries. His tenure has been marked by fluctuating relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Voronin proceeded with former President Petru Lucinschi’s plans to privatize several important state-owned industries, and on occasion even broke with his own party over important issues.
From January to April 2002, large demonstrations took place in opposition to several controversial government proposals, including expanded use of the Russian language in schools, and its designation as a second official language. While the demonstrations were tense at times, the government did not use force and ultimately agreed to Council of Europe mediation.
In 2003, Voronin’s government backtracked over signing a Russian-proposed federalization settlement with the separatist Transnistria region. In 2004, Voronin branded the leadership of the Transnistria “a transnational criminal group“, and ordered an economic blockade of Transnistria after the breakaway region closed Moldovan-speaking schools.

In March 2005 parliamentary elections, the PCRM received 46.1% of the vote, or 56 seats in the 101-member Parliament —more than enough for the 51-vote minimum required to remain in government, but short of the 61 votes necessary to elect a president. However, President Voronin was re-elected with support from the Christian Democratic People’s Party and from the Democratic and Social Liberal factions, after Voronin promised to deliver on needed reforms and Euro-Atlantic integration for the country. The latter two factions broke away from the Electoral Bloc “Moldova Democrată” following the elections, leaving the Our Moldova Alliance (AMN) of former Chişinău Mayor Serafim Urechean as the second-largest party in Parliament, with 26 seats.

Voronin is married and has two children. He is an economical engineer, political science graduate, and jurist by formation. He has military rank of Major General from the former-USSR Ministry of Interior (equivalent of NATO OF-6 Brigadier General – see Ranks and insignia of the Soviet military and Ranks and insignia of NATO). Some argue that he also holds Russian citizenship in addition to the one of the Republic of Moldova, from the time he lived as a private person in Moscow in 1991-1993.

Main goals of political agenda