Ion Ceban gives up parliamentary seat: “It was a dirty, aggressive campaign”
One of the leaders of the Electoral Bloc “Alternative” Ion Ceban, announced that he will remain the mayor of Chișinău, giving up the parliamentary seat he won in the September 28 elections. He made the announcement on Thursday, October 9, during a live broadcast on social media.
Ion Ceban thanked every voter who supported the “Alternative” Bloc and said the team will represent them in Parliament, while he will remain in the city administration, where he plans to launch “major modernization projects.”
Ceban again accused the ruling party of exerting pressure, claiming it had launched a campaign to “decapitate the Chișinău City Hall.”
“It was a dirty, aggressive campaign, not based on ideas but on lies and manipulation, and it still continues. I want to say one thing: their goal is to intensify this dirty campaign and to dismantle the Chișinău City Hall. They keep saying they will come with searches, with criminal cases, that someone walks around with a file. We are going to Parliament with a team of well-prepared people. And I will remain mayor, just as I promised you,” Ceban said.
The votes obtained in the September 28 elections secured the “Alternative” Electoral Bloc eight parliamentary seats. The next candidate on the list, in the ninth position, is Chișinău Deputy Mayor Angela Cutasevici.
After the parliamentary elections, the Chișinău City Hall experienced a wave of resignations. The mayor explained that the institution is “a living organism” and that the changes taking place are “part of the life of any organization that grows and works.”
“Several internal reorganization processes have begun, and this is, after all, a natural stage. What we want most is for the results to meet citizens’ expectations. (...) I sincerely thank all my colleagues and greatly appreciate their work and dedication during this period. I will personally announce any further changes or repositioning as soon as possible,” Ion Ceban said on Monday, October 6, during the Chișinău City Hall meeting.
Who is Ion Ceban
A graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics at Moldova State University, Ion Ceban began his political career with the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM). Between 2004 and 2005, during the presidency of Communist leader Vladimir Voronin, he served as a senior consultant on internal policy in the Presidential Office.
For a period, Ceban headed a department at the Ministry of Education, from which he was promoted to deputy minister, a position he held for five months, from November 2007 to April 2008.
Later, between 2008 and 2009, he chaired the Secretariat for European Integration, a commission established under the Government.
Transition to PSRM and later roles
Between 2011 and 2014, Ion Ceban served as a member of the Moldovan Parliament’s eighth legislature, initially representing the PCRM. In September 2012, he left the Communist faction and joined the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM), which had been relaunched by his former colleagues Igor Dodon and Zinaida Greceanîi. He was later appointed PSRM secretary for ideology.
Running on the PSRM list, he won another parliamentary seat in 2014, which he gave up in June 2015. From 2015 to 2019, he served as a municipal councilor and head of the PSRM faction in the Chișinău Municipal Council. Between 2016 and 2018, with brief interruptions, he also advised then-President Igor Dodon on internal policy and served for a time as his spokesperson.
After the parliamentary elections on February 24, 2019, he held the position of deputy speaker of Parliament for several months. He later resigned from that post and his parliamentary seat after being elected mayor of Chișinău.
The race for the capital’s City Hall
After Mayor Dorin Chirtoacă’s resignation, Ceban ran as the PSRM candidate in the 2018 early local elections, reaching the runoff, where he lost to Andrei Năstase of the Dignity and Truth Platform. However, neither candidate was validated as mayor, as the elections were declared invalid due to alleged campaigning on social media during election day.
New local elections were held in 2019, and Ion Ceban won in the second round on November 3, securing 52.39% of valid votes.
As the candidate of the National Alternative Movement (MAN), the party he founded in early 2023, Ion Ceban was re-elected for a second term as mayor of Chișinău in the November 6, 2023 elections, winning in the first round with 50.62% of the vote.
Beliefs and promises
According to Radio Free Europe, after joining the Socialists, Ceban began promoting Russian Orthodoxy and what he called “traditional values.” He also opposed the signing of the Association Agreement with the European Union, even though, during his time with the PCRM, he had been involved in promoting European integration.
In 2014, Ceban protested in Brussels against Moldova’s Association Agreement with the EU and signed a legislative initiative introduced by several Socialist MPs calling for the annulment of the Agreement.
Later, both in his Chișinău mayoral campaigns and during the parliamentary race, Ion Ceban described himself as “pro-European.”
He was also one of the supporters of the illegal referendum held in Gagauzia in February 2014, in which most residents of the region voted in favor of joining the Russian Federation. Based on the results of a similar referendum held a month later in Crimea, Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian territory.
Before the election that brought him his first mayoral term, Ion Ceban pledged to fight corruption and lawlessness in Chișinău, ensure greater transparency in city governance and public spending, and hire professionals through open competition while reducing bureaucracy. Experts later noted that Ceban appointed party colleagues to key positions in the City Hall.
He also promised to implement an electronic system for public procurement and administrative document management.
In the area of transport infrastructure, he stated that there is no viable alternative to trams or “high-speed rail transport.” He also pledged to restore the Buiucani funicular and build new transport lines in the Ciocana and Poșta Veche districts.
