Vladimir Voronin (; born Vladimir Bujeniță, 25 May 1941) is a Moldovan politician. He was the third president of Moldova from 2001 until 2009 and has been the First Secretary of the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) since 1994. He was Europe's first democratically elected communist party head of state after the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc.
Family and education
Vladimir Voronin was born as Vladimir Bujeniță in the village of Corjova, located that time in the Romanian-administered Transnistria Governorate. Although Voronin is a lifelong communist who pursued unfriendly policies towards Romania at various times during the 2000s, his grandfather Isidor Sârbu was an anticommunist fighter in Romania after 1944. Voronin's mother, Pelagheia Bujeniță, died on 2 July 2005. His biological father, Nicolae Bujeniță, died during World War II. Voronin was raised by his step-father, Nikolai Voronin, an ethnic Russian and a communist activist.
Voronin graduated from the Cooperation Tekhnikum (Kooperativny tekhnikum) of Chișinău (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).
Early career
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.
After 1971, 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 City Committee of the Communist Party. Between 1988 and 1990, he held the office of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Moldovan SSR. In this capacity he advocated against the use of force to quell anti-Soviet popular demonstrations on 7 and 10 November 1989, a regretful reference to which he made when addressing the country on TV on 8 April 2009 after anti-government protests were quelled by the police. 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). He played a central role in reviving the Communist Party after it was banned in 1991–1993. In 1994 he was elected President of the PCRM. He was a candidate for the post of President of the now-independent Republic of Moldova at the 1996 elections. In the parliamentary election in March 1998, Vladimir Voronin was elected as a Member of Parliament. He then served as member of its Permanent Bureau and as president of the PCRM's parliamentary faction, which held 40 of 101 seats.
Voronin was nominated as Prime Minister of Moldova by President Petru Lucinschi in late 1999, but the nomination was unsuccessful because Voronin did not have enough support in parliament. In the parliamentary election in February 2001, he was again elected as a Member of Parliament.
Presidential career
First mandate
The PCRM won 50.07% of the vote and 71 of the 101 seats in the February 2001 parliamentary election; by this time the constitution had been changed to provide for election of the President through the Parliament rather than popular vote. In March the PCRM's Central Committee nominated Voronin as its presidential candidate at a plenum, and on 4 April 2001 Voronin was elected as President by the Parliament. Of the 89 deputies participating in the vote, 71 voted for Voronin, 15 voted for Dumitru Braghiş, and three voted for Valerian Cristea. He was sworn in at a ceremony in Chişinău on 7 April 2001. The Constitutional Court ruled that the President could also lead a political party, and Voronin was re-elected as the PCRM's leader.