Background
Vladimir Nicolaevich Voronin was born on May 25, 1941 in the village of Corjova, Dubăsari District.
Vladimir Nicolaevich Voronin was born on May 25, 1941 in the village of Corjova, Dubăsari District.
After graduating from the Chișinău Community College he worked as the head of a bakery in the town of Criuleni 1961 till 1966, after that he was the head of the bread factory in Dubăsari for five years. At the same time he studied at the all-USSR external University of food production.
He worked in a district committee, he also was the chairman of district and city executive committee, ten years in a row he was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR, during a year he was the Minister of the Interior.
In October of 1993 during the first Constituent Conference of the Communist Party of the Republic of Moldova (CPRM) Vladimir Voronin was elected the co-chairman of its Republican Soviet. In legal form he assured its registration, after which a mass home return of the former communists to the CPRM began. This allowed carrying out the first Party Convention in December of the following year, where he was elected the first Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPRM, and during the third Convention in March of 1997 he was reelected for the same position. In March of 1998 Voronin became a deputy of the Parliament of Moldova of the 14th convocation, a member of the Permanent Bureau of the Parliament and the chairman of the Parliament group of the CPRM, and in 2000 he ran for the post of the President. After two unsuccessful rounds (the President was not elected) the Parliament was dissolved. In January of 2001 the pre-term Parliament elections took place and Voronin became a Parliament deputy. As the result of the elections (the President now is elected by the Parliament) on April 4, 2001 Voronin became the President of the Republic of Moldova. During the fourth Party convocation on April 21, 2001 he was elected the chairman of the CPRM.
The present Republic of Moldova is the only country in the CIS ruled by the Communist Party and the communist President.
His foreign policy is quite interesting. In February of 2003 Vladimir Voronin paid a state visit to China and Vietnam. The trip to the People’s Republic of China was caused by such a circumstance in the home policy of China, like future changes in the cabinet of the country. The President Jiang Zemin, who considered Vladimir Voronin to be his close friend, wanted to introduce him to his successor, Hu Jintao, the secretary-general of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The President of the Socialist Republic Vietnam, Tran Duc Luong, invited Vladimir Voronin to visit his country during the Summit of the International Organization of the Francophonie (which unites French-speaking countries), their first meeting, that took place in Beirut in 2002. The President of Moldova was received by representatives of the Vietnam elite, who graduated from Moldavian universities. The officials carried on a dialogue about their being interested in the possible cooperation seeking to the adaptation of the regenerated relations between these two nations. According to Vladimir Voronin, Moldova is one of few European and post-Soviet states, that realized the availability of the relations with these two Asian countries, that managed to get rid of the historic ballast and got on well with European countries, the USA and Russia during a short period of time.
He assured the activation of the integration process of his country to the European structures and established cooperation with the USA by visiting America on G. Bush’s invitation in December of 2002. Since May of 2003 Moldova chairs the Committee of Ministers of the EU.
Concerning the entrance in the union “Russia – Belarus”, according to Voronin, Moldova shouldn’t bring it closer. Voronin continues to develop the cooperation with NATO; as a rule, Moldavian officers study and upgrade their skills in the West, thousands of young men go to study to Romania; Voronin widens Moldova’s participation in the GUAM political union. The President insists on unconditional fulfillment of the Istanbul Summit’s decisions concerning withdrawal of Russian troops (the former 14th army) from the territory of Transdniestria. Especially tensed relations Voronin has with the President of the unacknowledged Transdniestrian Republic, Smirnov.
Vladimir Voronin restructured the almost two-billion debt of Moldova. Under his lead the internal political situation stabilized, there was a serious breakthrough in the European integration process. Voronin initiated signing the Treaty of friendship between the Russian Federation and Moldova (before that, negotiations stretched out for four years). Moldova agreed to pay off the gas debt with shares of the leading vine and tobacco enterprises.
