Maia Sandu

Biography

Maia Sandu was born in 1972 in Risipeni, in the Fălești district of Soviet Moldavia, to a doctor and a teacher. She studied management at the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova from 1988 to 1994 and international relations at the Academy of Public Administration in Chișinău, and in 2010 earned a master's in public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School. She then worked as an adviser to an executive director at the World Bank.

From 2012 to 2015 she was Moldova's minister of education. After a failed bid to become prime minister in 2015 she launched a movement that in May 2016 became the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS). As the joint pro-European candidate in the 2016 presidential election she reached the run-off but lost to the pro-Russian Igor Dodon.

After the February 2019 parliamentary election her ACUM bloc formed a coalition with Dodon's Socialists, and on 8 June 2019 she became prime minister. The Constitutional Court first declared her appointment void, setting off a brief constitutional crisis, before reversing itself. Her government fell to a no-confidence vote in November 2019.

In November 2020 she defeated Dodon to become Moldova's first female president, taking office on 24 December and resigning as PAS leader. PAS won a majority in the 2021 parliamentary election. As president she has pursued anti-corruption reforms and European integration, securing EU candidate status, has firmly backed Ukraine against Russia's invasion and accused Moscow of plotting a coup. She campaigned for the yes side in the 2024 referendum on EU membership and was re-elected that November.