Maia Sandu (24 May 1972-) was Prime Minister of Moldova from 8 June to 14 November 2019 (succeeding Pavel Filip and preceding Ion Chicu) and President from 24 December 2020 (succeeding Igor Dodon). She was the leader of the liberal Party of Action and Solidarity.
Biography[]
Maia Sandu was born in Risipeni, Moldavian SSR, Soviet Union in 1972, and she worked at the World Bank before serving as Education Minister of Moldova from 2012 to 2015, serving as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. In December 2015, she left the PLDM to found the Party of Action and Solidarity, and she ran for President in 2016 as a pro-European candidate.
In 2019, her PAS and the Dignity and Truth Platform Party formed an electoral bloc which formed a coalition government with the PSRM, leading to Sandu serving as Prime Minister from June to November 2019. She and PSRM leader Igor Dodon clashed on policy, however, as Sandu sought to declare 23 August a day of remembrance for the victims of Stalinism and Nazism rather than Liberation Day, and she also supported European Union membership. As a result, she was ousted as Prime Minister in November 2019 by a vote of no-confidence. In 2020, she again ran for President, promising to fight corruption and poverty and to reform the criminal justice system.
She won the 15 November 2020 runoff with 57.75% of the popular vote, and her presidency was marked by a partnership with Romania in fighting COVID-19 in her country, signing a 19 April 2021 Council of Europe action plan to democratize Moldova and improve its human rights, announced that she would vote "yes" in a referendum to unite Moldova and Romania, negotiated the lifting of all economic barriers between Moldova and Russia in August 2021, and supported a Russian withdrawal from Transnistria.