page_title: Igor Dodon
section_title: Presidency (2016-present)
hierarchical_section_title: Igor Dodon / Presidency (2016-present)
caption_attribution_description: Official welcoming ceremony held for Moldovan president Igor Dodon
context_page_description: Igor Dodon is a Moldovan politician who has been the President of Moldova since 23 December 2016. Previously, he was the leader of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova. He served as Minister of Trade and Economics 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.
context_section_description: Dodon was sworn in on 23 December 2016 in the Palace of the Republic. Among the honoured guests included Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Rogozin, Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Rusy and Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén. Three days later, the flag of the European Union that was hanging next to the Moldovan flag was removed from the building of the Moldovan presidential administration. On 4 January 2017, in the 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:
  "I believe that we have many problems that need to be addressed together with Russia, this is true. But at the same time, I am not a pro-Russian, not pro-Western, but a pro-Moldavian politician, a supporter of our statehood. I believe that the most important thing is to respect the interests of our own country. My "pro-Russian, is a cliche that my political opponents are trying to introduce into the consciousness of citizens."
  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 the polls carried out in 2019 related to the most respected politicians of the Republic of Moldova, Igor Dodon enjoys the highest trust, ranking first among politicians in which Moldovans have the highest trust. 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." 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 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.
  In 2020, the 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 (Liberation Day) due to the coronavirus pandemic in Moldova.
caption: Dodon in Baku, Azerbaijan in June 2017.
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