Igor Dodon
Igor Dodon is a Moldovan politician who served as the 5th president of Moldova from 2016 to 2020. He currently serves as the leader of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova since 2024. He served as Minister of Economy and Trade in the 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. He lost his bid for re-election in 2020 to Maia Sandu, whom he had defeated four years earlier in the 2016 Moldovan presidential election.
On 24 May 2022, Dodon was arrested by the Moldovan authorities on charges of passive corruption, illegal financing of a political party by a criminal organization, illicit enrichment, and high treason against Moldova through receiving funds from fugitive Moldovan politician Vladimir Plahotniuc in order to intercede on Plahotniuc's behalf regarding criminal cases filed in Russia. He was placed under house arrest on 26 May in order to allow prosecutors to investigate the allegations further. The United States Department of the Treasury has also accused Dodon of corruption and conspiring with Russia through his political aides to interfere with the Moldovan elections and rig the media in his favour. He was released from house arrest on 18 November 2022 pending a court trial on all charges.
Early and personal life
Igor Dodon was born on 18 February 1975 in Sadova village in the Călărași District of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic to Nicolae and Galina Dodon, a Romanian language teacher in his native village.Studies and didactic activity
He graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the State Agrarian University of Moldova in 1997, then the Faculty of Management at the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova in 1998. He later graduated from the Faculty of Law in economics at the International Management Institute. He obtained the scientific title of Doctor in Economic Sciences at the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova, the Department of Banks and Stock Exchanges.From 1997 to 2005, Dodon also carried out pedagogical activities. This is where he would meet his wife Galina in May 1995. Thus, he holds the positions of assistant lecturer at the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova, senior lecturer at the Free International University of Moldova, the International Institute of Management and the State University of Moldova. Igor Dodon is also a member Examination Committees at the university graduation exams within ULIM and IIM.
Professional career
After graduating from educational institutions, since July 1997 Igor Dodon has been employed at the Moldova Stock Exchange. Thus, between 1997 and 2001 he worked as a senior specialist of the Clearing Department, of the Listing Department, administrator of the Electronic Trading Systems and then, Director of the Marketing, Listing Department within the Moldova Stock Exchange.Between November 2001 and May 2005, he served as chairman and member of the Board of Directors of the National Depository of Securities of Moldova SA. From September 2002 to May 2005 he was the chairman of the Universal Commodity Exchange of Moldova.
Between February 2003 – May 2005, Igor Dodon is a member of the expert committee to the National Securities Commission of Moldova. Also, between March 2004 – May 2005, he is also a member of the Arbitration Commission of the Stock Exchange. He was an editor of the Newsletter "Stock Exchange of Moldova" and of the Stock Market Bulletin of the Universal Commodities Exchange "Stock Exchange – Stock market quotations".
Political career
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 2005, the PCRM also had won the elections having an open pro-European platform, with a pro-European slogan "I Vote", where the European stars surrendered the hammer and sickle on the red Communist wallpaper.
In 2007, a trend for all political forces was to adopt a pro-European platform for the elections in 2009. In this regard, Igor Dodon, during his work trips to Brussels, had assured the high rank European officials on how he and an entire Communist party were pro-European.
In September 2009, after 8 years of governing, the Communist Party came into opposition. Igor Dodon had lost his ministerial position. He became an MP in the Parliament, which was reelected in November 2010. He had the 6th position in the PCRM list of the candidates. The Communists has changed the European vector, and in 2010 they drifted to east, and self-declared as pro-Russians.
Igor Dodon, in only a year, since 2009 by 2010, became a convinced pro Moldovan – no Europe, neither Russia. "Moldova can become a contact point for different countries; an area where first of all will interfere the economic interests of our neighbors and partners. We are in a very advantageous position in terms of the common interest of CIS and EU and this objective shall become an issue of the external policy."
In June 2011, Dodon lost to Dorin Chirtoacă at the elections for mayor of Chișinău. He took 49.4% of the votes. The local elections have been an occasion for the Communist Party to return to power, at the least at the local authority level. During the election campaign, Igor Dodon went to Brussels where he had meetings with the European officials in order to establish the potential partnerships: "I am at the working trip in Brussels, where I have several meetings in my agenda, including with the Mayors of some big towns of Belgium, with the acting Prime Minister of Belgium and some high rank officials of the European Commission".
Inside the PCRM, an internal fight had existed between Igor Dodon and Mark Tkaciuk. Dodon has had some separate opinion on some policy issues. This independence had raised some fears from the Tkaciuk side, and Dodon was considered a social threat. Dodon has shown that he had an internal support, from some rayon committees of the party. An independent position of Igor Dodon, his rating within the party and in the society, his political ambitions in overtaking the power, first of the Mayor Office and then, in PCRM – all this were interpreted by Tkaciuk as a threat, the fact that made him to speed up and force the actions that led to marginalization of Dodon in PCRM, by misinforming methods in order to prevent him to be delegated at the position of the Mayor of the Capital.
In November 2011, Dodon left the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova 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. "Our decision has a common and complex goal: to avoid early elections, the elections of the president of the country, reshaping of the government and political and social stability. This is the society wish, and this is what the Republic of Moldova is needed – a stability and the economic development once and for all... We left the PCRM in order to cut the 'Gordian knot' of the hate and distrust which for the last two years made impossible any constitutional decision needed for the Republic of Moldova stability" Igor Dodon has declared.
On 18 December 2011, Dodon joined the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova and, at the Xth Congress of PSRM, he was elected chairman of the party.
On 16 March 2012, three former communists voted for the Alliance for European Integration 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.
Presidency
Dodon was sworn in on 23 December 2016 in the Palace of the Republic. Three days later, the flag of Europe that had flown next to the Moldovan flag from the building of the Moldovan presidential administration was removed. On 4 January 2017, Dodon met with the president of the breakaway republic of Transnistria Vadim Krasnoselsky. This meeting was the first meeting of the leaders of Moldova and Transnistria in 8 years. In October 2017, Dodon signed a law that provides for the reform of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova.After being elected president, in an interview with Deutsche Welle, Dodon said:
In 2018, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was the first foreign head of state to meet Dodon in Moldova. Dodon has also acted to make the Russian language mandatory in Moldovan schools.
On 5 May 2018, Dodon announced a campaign, which would bring legislation into parliament, which would transition Moldova from a parliamentary republic to a presidential republic. According to polls carried out in 2019 on the topic of respect for politicians of the Republic of Moldova, Igor Dodon enjoyed the highest trust, ranking first among politicians in which Moldovans. In the early years of his presidency, steps were taken to renovate the Presidential Palace in Condrița with the help of the Turkish government. Some of the renovations included a play ground for Dodon's young children and a wine cellar. The renovated palace was opened on 17 October 2018 by Dodon and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
On 16 October 2018, Dodon declared that his country would be prepared to host a Pan-Orthodox Council, where the situation with the Ukraine autocephaly and the Moscow–Constantinople schism should be discussed. He also said that "Moldova will remain a canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate." He strongly opposed the pro-Romanian Metropolis of Bessarabia. In early 2019, President Dodon ordered a National Coordination Committee to plan national events and celebrations dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Moldova in the Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive. The events would include the restoration or reconstruction of monuments and military graves and the filming of a documentary on the offensive. At the same time, Dodon presided over the celebrations of the 660th anniversary of Moldovan statehood in early February.
During the 2019 Moldovan constitutional crisis, Dodon was temporarily relieved of the powers and duties of the presidency by a Moldovan court because of the reluctance to dissolve the parliament as mandated by the Constitutional Court of Moldova in a previous ruling and replaced by the former prime minister Pavel Filip as the acting president of the country.
In late October, he met with Transnistrian President Krasnoselsky at his residence in Holercani ahead of the Bavaria Conference, scheduled for 4–5 November.
File:Armașu & Dodon.jpg|thumb|Dodon with NBM governor Octavian Armașu, 19 February 2020
In 2020, he ordered the creation of a National Heraldic Commission that would look into the concept of awarding medals to war veterans in honor of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. On 15 April, he ordered the postponement of the Victory Day celebrations to 24 August due to the coronavirus pandemic in Moldova.
Dodon announced his candidacy for another term on 9 September, saying he is doing it "on behalf of the people". In his campaign message, he pledged to dissolve the parliament after the elections.