1. Igor Dodon currently serves as the leader of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova since 2024.
65 Facts About Igor Dodon
1. 2.
Igor Dodon served as Minister of Economy and Trade in the governments of Vasile Tarlev and Zinaida Greceanii from September 2006 to September 2009 and was a member of the Parliament of Moldova from 2009 to 2016.
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Igor Dodon lost his bid for re-election in 2020 to Maia Sandu, whom he had defeated four years earlier in the 2016 Moldovan presidential election.
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Igor Dodon was released from house arrest on 18 November 2022 pending a court trial on all charges.
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Igor Dodon was born on 18 February 1975 in Sadova village in the Calarasi District of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic to Nicolae and Galina Dodon, a Romanian language teacher in his native village.
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Igor Dodon 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.
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Igor Dodon later graduated from the Faculty of Law in economics at the International Management Institute.
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Igor Dodon obtained the scientific title of Doctor in Economic Sciences at the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova, the Department of Banks and Stock Exchanges.
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Igor Dodon is a member Examination Committees at the university graduation exams within ULIM and IIM.
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Igor Dodon was appointed to the post of Associate Minister of Trade and Economics in May 2005, during the second Tarlev Cabinet.
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Igor Dodon assumed the position of Minister of Trade and Economics in September 2006.
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Igor Dodon held the position until September 2009, when the government of Zinaida Greceanii ended.
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Igor Dodon held the post of Associate Prime Minister under Greceanii from 2008 until 2009.
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Igor Dodon became an MP in the Parliament, which was reelected in November 2010.
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Igor Dodon had the 6th position in the PCRM list of the candidates.
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In June 2011, Igor Dodon lost to Dorin Chirtoaca at the elections for mayor of Chisinau.
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Igor Dodon has had some separate opinion on some policy issues.
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Igor Dodon has shown that he had an internal support, from some rayon committees of the party.
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In November 2011, Igor 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.
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On 18 December 2011, Igor 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.
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Later, Igor Dodon stated that he regretted his vote for Timofti.
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Igor Dodon was sworn in on 23 December 2016 in the Palace of the Republic.
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On 4 January 2017, Igor Dodon met with the president of the breakaway republic of Transnistria Vadim Krasnoselsky.
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In October 2017, Igor Dodon signed a law that provides for the reform of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova.
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Igor Dodon has acted to make the Russian language mandatory in Moldovan schools.
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On 5 May 2018, Igor Dodon announced a campaign, which would bring legislation into parliament, which would transition Moldova from a parliamentary republic to a presidential republic.
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On 17 October 2017, the Constitutional Court of Moldova decided that Igor Dodon was temporarily unable to perform his duties for failing to swear in proposed Defence Minister Eugen Sturza.
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On 2 January 2018, the Constitutional Court of Moldova decided that Igor Dodon was temporarily unable to perform his duties for failing to swear in a number of seven ministers.
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Igor Dodon is considered a pro-Russian politician and in favor of the federalization of Moldova, which is in line with the views of Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Kozak and his 2003 Kozak memorandum.
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In late September 2019, months after the constitutional crisis, Igor Dodon stated that the country had abandoned its anti-Russian stance through its partnership with the Party of Action and Solidarity led by Prime Minister Maia Sandu.
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Igor Dodon has regularly changed his stance on the future of Transnistria.
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Currently, Igor Dodon believes that the region should receive autonomous status like Gagauzia.
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On 3 October 2017, Igor Dodon became the first Moldovan leader to ever hold a working meeting with commanders of units in the National Army.
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Igor Dodon attended the 2018 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony in Moscow in June 2018 and the 2019 European Games in Minsk just over a year later.
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The day after the elections, Igor Dodon met with the parliamentary faction of the PSRM, thanking them for their support in campaign.
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Igor Dodon came under fire for not allocating to president-elect Sandu a guard from the State Protection and Guard Service, which is traditionally given to the incoming president at the instructions of the incumbent president.
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Igor Dodon said in an interview with TASS in Moscow that he had discouraged people from pouring into the streets after the election in order to prevent a "Maidan" scenario in the country.
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Igor Dodon said commenting on the election results that "there will be a sobering up of a very large number of people who will understand that they were wrong".
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Igor Dodon accused Sandu of trying to usurp power in the country.
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In November 2012, Igor Dodon posted on his Facebook profile a photo that shows him wearing clothes printed with a patch of the Russian flag, which was criticized as a sign of Igor Dodon's alleged Russophilia.
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In October 2016, during the presidential election campaign, Igor Dodon affirmed that Crimea, the subject of a territorial dispute between Russia and Ukraine, "is a territory of the Russian Federation".
42.
On 7 June 2019, at the Democratic Party headquarter, according to Andrian Candu, President Igor Dodon negotiated with Vladimir Plahotniuc the conditions of establishing the coalition between PSRM and DP.
43.
On 8 June 2019, before the Meeting of Parliament of the Republic of Moldova, the temporary coalition ACUM-PSRM was established, Igor Dodon has declared that there were some pressure on him to tender the resignation, anticipating the appearance of some compromising videos.
44.
Later, after the statements made by Andrian Candu, deputy head of the DPM, some videos have appeared at the Publika TV, one of the TV posts owned by the democratic party leader, where Igor Dodon has confirmed to Vlad Plahotniuc, that he has received the money from the Russian Federation on a monthly basis for PSRM maintenance, and about presentation of federalisation plan of the Republic of Moldova coordinated with Russian Federation.
45.
The President Igor Dodon had recognized that the negotiations took place to establishing the majority, the discussion at which had included the participation of the businessman Serghei Iaralov.
46.
In November 2014, the socialist politician of Russian ethnicity Valentin Crilov accused Igor Dodon of being an "instrument of scenarios that would cause 'bloodshed' in Moldova", and labeled the Party of Socialists as "being in the service of another country" such as Russia.
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The protesters particularly criticized Igor Dodon for allowing himself to congratulate Lukashenko on behalf of the Moldovan people, in spite of the negative feelings towards the Belarusian leader at the time.
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Igor Dodon's subordinates prepare references on Moldovan politicians, public figures and non-governmental organizations for the Russian leadership.
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In 2016 alone, before being elected president of Moldova in December, Igor Dodon visited Moscow at least 10 times.
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Igor Dodon's interlocutors were people from politics, business, public administration, expert community and the power bloc of Moldova.
51.
Igor Dodon approved a salary ten times higher than his presidential salary.
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Igor Dodon is included in the EU sanctions list for destabilizing the situation in Moldova, and Igor Chaika is banned from entering the country.
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On 24 May 2022, Igor Dodon was detained by the Moldovan authorities.
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Igor Dodon was then put under house arrest for 30 days.
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Igor Dodon has accused Sandu of having politicized judicial cases against him.
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Igor Dodon was released from house arrest on 18 November 2022 pending a court trial on all charges and was instructed not to leave the country.
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Igor Dodon is accused of providing an opinion during his tenure as Minister of Economy, which led to the signing of a contract in May 2008 for the procurement of electricity at an inflated price for the Republic of Moldova.
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Igor Dodon, is targeted in two other cases, he denies the accusations.
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Igor Dodon married Galina Igor Dodon in 1999 and together they have three children: Bogdan, Vlad, and Nicolae.
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Igor Dodon's oldest son, Vlad, is a passionate player of water polo.
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Igor Dodon's brother Aleksander is a co-owner alongside Igor Chaika of the Industrial Ecological Operator company which deals with waste.
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Igor Dodon is considered to be good friends with Colonel General Victor Gaiciuc, who is currently one of his advisers.
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Igor Dodon had proposed Gaiciuc for the position of defense minister after rejecting Eugen Sturza's candidacy.
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Igor Dodon is a supporter of the Union of Officers of Moldova, where he holds the honorary rank of Major of the Reserve.
65.
On 9 September 2018, Igor Dodon was involved in a car accident on the Chisinau-Calarasi highway.