The president of the Socialist Party, Igor Dodon, resigns from the deputy position in Parliament. The announcement was made on Monday, October 18, during a press conference. The next candidate on the deputy list from the Bloc of Communists and Socialists is Adrian Lebedinschi.

A request to this effect is to be forwarded to Parliament’s secretariat in the near future.

“I made the decision to refuse the mandate of deputy in the Chișinău Parliament. I know that some now rejoice or grieve. I honestly don’t see the point in being in this Legislature. I consider that I can be efficient in other functions,” declared the leader of the socialists.

Igor Dodon claims that he proposed to the party to which he belongs that the position of president of the Socialist Party should no longer exist.

“I made the decision and my colleagues supported me that at the Socialist Party Congress, which will take place in two months, changes be made to the party’s statute so that the party is led by a collegiate governing body. Thus, in two months, if these changes are voted in Congress, there will be no position of president of the Socialist Party. It will be a collegiate body, an executive body, which will elect an executive secretary. I have proposed five members, but Congress will decide. My colleagues proposed that I remain at least still the party’s honorary president. I want to mention that I am not leaving the party,” said Dodon.

The leader of the Socialists says that from now on he will lead the business association Moldovan-Russian Union of Entrepreneurs.

“I want to mention that the Moldovan-Russian Union of Entrepreneurs has already been created and was registered in Chișinău in June this year, and the main directions as head of the new business association will be the development of bilateral economic relations between Moldova and the Russian Federation, attracting Russian investments in Moldova, assisting Moldovan entrepreneurs in establishing contacts with Russian partners, support for young entrepreneurs in launching various Start-Up, launching and supporting various socio-humanitarian projects,” said the socialist leader.

Following the parliamentary elections of July 11, the Action and Solidarity Party won 63 seats, the Electoral Bloc of Communists and Socialists – 32 seats, and the Shor Political Party – 6 seats in the Parliament.

Igor Dodon, the leader of the Socialist party, has held exclusively public positions in the last two decades, but he managed to amass a big fortune, to have vacations in the best tourist destinations, and to promote his relatives and friends.

According to his wealth declaration, for the last two years, Igor Dodon reported a salary income from the position of country president of about 27,000 euros. After the end of his term, he remained unemployed. His wife, Galina Dodon, supplemented the family budget with about 38,000 euros from the Exclusiv Media company, registered in the name of Dodon’s countryman, Corneliu Furculiță, the company being investigated, since 2016, in a criminal case for the illegal financing of the Socialist Party, a case that does not have a finality yet. The criminal case was opened after video images appeared in the public space from the discussions between Igor Dodon, Vladimir Plahotniuc, and Serghei Iaralov, in which Dodon received a black bag allegedly full of money from the oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc.

Adrian Lebedinschi, next on the list of candidates for deputy from the Bloc of Communists and Socialists, who did not get a parliamentary seat, following the July 11 elections, would occupy this position after the socialist Igor Dodon announced that he renounces the mandate of deputy.

Adrian Lebedinschi, who is on the Bloc of Communists and Socialists list for the early parliamentary elections of July 11, is a lawyer by profession. Since October 2015, Lebedinschi was a deputy in the Parliament of Moldova for the 20th legislature (2014-2018), within the faction of the Socialist Party. In 2019, Adrian Lebedinschi was elected deputy on the Socialists Party lists. He then served as chair of the Committee on Culture, Education, Research, Youth, Sport, and the Media.

Since 2009, Lebedinschi has been working as a lawyer, and previously was an investigator and deputy commissioner at several police stations in Chișinău.

Adrian Lebedinschi declared in the last two years, 2019 – 2020, salary and allowances of 20,000 euros, received from the Secretariat of the Parliament. In the wealth declaration, Adrian Lebedinschi indicates that he obtained 70,000 euros in the form of inheritance. Lebedinschi owns a Lexus ES300H car manufactured in 2019 and bought in 2020 for 20,000 euros.

In 2020, ZdG wrote that Veronica Lebedinschi, the wife of former deputy Adrian Lebedinschi, has been appointed director of the Republican Experimental Center for Prosthetics, Orthopedics, and Rehabilitation. According to her wealth declaration, but also that of her husband, until her appointment, at least in the last 3 years, Veronica Lebedinschi worked in the psychiatric hospital, and in 2019 she earned an annual salary of approximately 9,000 euros. According to the wealth declaration for the years 2019-2020, Veronica Lebedinschi declared a salary of 18,000 euros.

The Lebedinschi family is known as an influential power in Chișinău. Adrian Lebedinschi’s brother, Maxim Lebedinschi, is a former secretary of the Central Electoral Commission, being over the years one of the advisers of President Igor Dodon.

The third brother, Cornel Lebedinschi, was promoted to Secretary of State at the Ministry of the Interior in 2020. In April 2021, he is proposed by the Socialist Party to the position of director of the National Center for Personal Data Protection, for a period of five years.

• The Brother of a Socialist Deputy Promoted to the Director Position at the Center for Private Data Protection