The death of the statesman was announced by a member of the first parliament of the republic, former deputy prime minister Konstantin Tampiza. “On September 13 at 11:30 p.m., the President of the Republic of Moldova, Mircea Snegur, surrendered in the fight against an incurable disease,” the politician wrote on his personal blog. Tampiza also expressed her condolences to the family of the former head of the country. Mircea Ivanovic will be buried at the Central Cemetery in Chisinau next to his wife.
Mircea Snegur was born on January 17, 1940 in the village of Trifanesti in Soroca County, Romania. He graduated from the Chisinau Agricultural Institute, became an agronomist and a doctor of agricultural sciences. He worked in agriculture and in various management positions in the northern regions of Moldova. Between 1985 and 1989, he worked as the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Moldova.
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At the end of 1990, after uncontested elections, he became the president of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova. In 1991, after the country was renamed the Republic of Moldova, he won the election again. During the August coup d’état from 18 to 21 August 1991, he did not comply with the demands of the State Emergency Committee and supported Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Snegur did not support the Popular Front of Moldova in its desire for immediate unification with Romania, for which the organization at one time tried to boycott him. Already in 1992, however, Mircea Ivanovic regained the support of the People’s Front and appeared as a strong supporter of removing the autonomy of Transnistria, which eventually triggered the Transnistrian conflict.
In 1996, in the fight for the presidency, Snegur lost to Petr Lucinschi. He then became a member of parliament as the chairman of the Party of Revival and Accord of Moldova. In Soviet times, he was awarded the Order of Honor and a medal for bravery. In 2000, the Moldovan authorities awarded him the Order of the Republic.
In 1960, Snegur married Georgeta Snegur. The couple raised two children – a son, Vitaliy, and a daughter, Natalia, who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of Moldova and served as the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova until January 20, 2016.
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