Vladimir Voronin

Vladimir Nicolae Voronin
President of Moldova
Incumbent
Assumed office  7 April 2001
Prime Minister	Vasile Tarlev Zinaida Greceanîi
Preceded by	Petru Lucinschi
Born	25 May 1941 (1941-05-25) (age 68) Corjova, Moldavian SSR
Political party	PCRM

Vladimir Nicolae Voronin (Russian: Владимир Николаевич Воронин, Vladimir Nikolaevich Voronin) (born May 25, 1941) is a Moldovan politician. He has been the President of the Republic of Moldova since 2001, and the First Secretary of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) since 1994. He is Europe's first democratically elected communist head of state (the second being Dimitris Christofias of Cyprus, who is the first in the European Union).

Biography

Early career

Vladimir Voronin was born in the village Corjova, Dubăsari district of the Moldavian SSR. Despite his russified name, his ethnic origins are Romanian. His grandfather was Isidor Sârbu.^{[1] [2][3]} Voronin's mother, Pelagheia Bujeniţă, died on July 2, 2005.^[4]

Voronin graduated from the Cooperation College (Kooperativny technikum) of Chişinău (1961), the All-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 Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union (1991).

He began working in 1961 as the head of a 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 served as first-secretary of the Bender 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.^[5] 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 First Secretary of the PCRM. In the same year, he was a candidate for the post of President of the now-independent Republic of Moldova. In March 1998, Vladimir Voronin was elected as a Member of Parliament, and served as member of its Permanent Bureau, and as president of the PCRM parliamentary faction.

Voronin was nominated as Prime Minister by President Petru Lucinschi in late 1999, but the nomination was unsuccessful because Voronin did not have enough support in parliament.^[6] In February 2001, he was again elected as a Member of Parliament (the 15th legislature since the creation of Moldavian SSR in 1940).

As President

The PCRM won 71 out of 101 seats in the February 2001 parliamentary election; by this time the constitution had been changed to provide for election of the President through parliament rather than popular vote.^[6] Following the election, the PCRM Central Committee nominated Voronin as its presidential candidate at a plenum on March 3 2001,^[7] and on April 4 2001 Voronin was elected as President by parliament. Of the 89 deputies participating in the vote, 71 voted for Voronin, 15 voted for Dumitru Braghis, and three voted for Valerian Cristea.^[8] He was sworn in at a ceremony in Chisinau on April 7.^[9] The Constitutional Court ruled that the President could also lead a political party, and Voronin was re-elected as PCRM leader.^[6]

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, opposition forces organized large demonstrations in protest against 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 mediation by the Council of Europe.

In 2003, Voronin's government backtracked over signing a Russian-proposed federalization settlement with the breakaway region of Transnistria. In 2004, Voronin branded the leadership of Transnistria "a transnational criminal group", and ordered an economic blockade of Transnistria after its authorities closed several Moldovan-speaking schools.

In the March 2005 parliamentary election, 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 received the necessary support from the Christian Democratic People's Party, the Democratic and Social Liberal factions, after he 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 election, leaving the Our Moldova Alliance (AMN) of the former Mayor of Chişinău Serafim Urechean as the second-largest party in Parliament, with 26 seats.) In the presidential election held in parliament on April 4 2005, Voronin was re-elected with 75 votes; another candidate, Gheorghe Duca, received one vote, and there were two invalid votes.^[10]

Main goals of political agenda

• Closer ties with the European Union;
• Solving the Transnistria conflict;
• NATO cooperation (without membership);
• Friendship with Russia^[11] and the restoration of the Soviet Union (the PCRM is part of the UCP-CPSU led by Gennady Zyuganov);
• Independence, as opposed to a unification with Romania.^[12]

Personal life

Vladimir Voronin is married and has two children. He is an economical engineer, political science graduate, and jurist by formation. He has the 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, because he used to receive a pension as a former Russian Ministry of Interior employee, from the time he lived as a private person in Moscow in 1991-1993. ^[13] It is widely believed that he is the richest Moldovian.

References

Leaders of Moldova since 1940 Moldavian SSR First Secretaries Pyotr Borodin • Nikita Salogor (acting) • Nikolay Koval • Leonid Brezhnev • Dmitry Gladky • Zinovy Serdyuk • Ivan Bodyul • Semyon Grossu • Petru Lucinschi • Grigory Yeremy Moldova Presidents Mircea Snegur • Petru Lucinschi • Vladimir Voronin