Party of Action and Solidarity

History

Formation

The party was created amid the 2015–2016 protests in Moldova and growing popular dissatisfaction with the ruling parties. On 23 December 2015, Maia Sandu posted a YouTube video in which she announced her intention to form a new political party. Her stated reason for doing so was the creation of a grassroots party, that would function based on the principles of internal democracy and would be financed through small donations. Sandu was elected as leader of the PAS on 15 May 2016 and the party was officially registered by the Ministry of Justice on 26 May. At the time of registration, the party had 7,500 members and 20 local organizations. In February 2017, the party applied for membership of the European People's Party (EPP).

In coalition government: June 2019 – November 2019

In the 2019 Moldovan parliamentary election, the PAS and the Dignity and Truth Platform Party formed the NOW Platform electoral alliance, which gathered 26.8% of the votes. After the alliance split into two separate parliamentary groups, the PAS ended up with 15 seats. On 6 June, the Party announced that it was ready to form a coalition government with the pro-Russian Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM) with the goal of freeing state institutions, which in their opinion were under oligarchic control. After the coalition was formed, PSRM leader Zinaida Greceanîi was elected as Speaker of the Parliament and the Sandu Cabinet was inaugurated. Largely because of the significant ideological differences between the ruling parties, the government only lasted for five months and was ousted on 12 November after the PSRM and the Democratic Party of Moldova voted in favor of a motion of no confidence.

In opposition: November 2019 – July 2021

After the ousting of the Sandu cabinet, the PAS was in opposition. In the 2020 Moldovan presidential election, the party's candidate and leader Sandu was elected as President of Moldova. According to Moldovan law, the president cannot be a member of a political party which resulted in Sandu resigning from the office of party president and renouncing her party membership. Until the next party congress, the post of PAS president was held by first vice president Igor Grosu on an interim basis, who was subsequently elected as the next PAS president.

In majority government: July 2021 – present

The PAS won by a landslide during the 2021 Moldovan parliamentary election, earning them 63 seats in the parliament. Igor Grosu was elected the President of the Moldovan Parliament. On 6 August 2021, Natalia Gavrilița was voted by 61 MPs as the Prime Minister of Moldova and she became the second PAS Prime Minister of Moldova, after Maia Sandu (2019). In early 2022, the party will hold a leadership election and is also expected to nominate a candidate for the 2023 Chișinău mayoral elections. In December 2023, the PAS joined forces with PSRM to secure a two-thirds majority for dismissing Octavian Armașu as governor of the National Bank of Moldova. The dismissal was criticised by the European Commission and International Monetary Fund.

Elections in Moldova have played a decisive role in shaping the country’s geopolitical direction, often seen as a crossroads between pro-European reform and closer ties with Russia. The 2021 parliamentary election was particularly significant, marking a major shift toward European integration as PAS secured a commanding majority. The 2025 election further reinforced this trajectory; even though the number of parliamentary seats had been reduced, PAS managed to retain its majority, underscoring continued public support for institutional reforms, anti-corruption efforts, and closer cooperation with the European Union. These elections not only redefined Moldova’s domestic political landscape but also drew international attention due to their implications for regional stability in Eastern Europe.

Political positions

The PAS has been widely described as a pro-European, pro-Western, centrist, centre-right, and right-wing party that adheres to liberalism, conservative liberalism, and liberal conservatism. The 2016 party program claims that they adhere to social liberalism. Italian scholar Gian Marco Moisé described the party as populist.

Social policy

The PAS has pursued policies deemed to be "culturally European" with examples including the signing of the anti-domestic abuse Istanbul Convention. This has received criticism about "western elites-based genderism" from Moldova's left. It has also been described as progressive and culturally liberal.

Economic policies

According to its program, the PAS supports the idea of an economy "based on private initiative" and is in favor of a "significant reduction of bureaucracy in all stages of business". In the 2020 Moldovan presidential election campaign, the party's candidate Maia Sandu proposed raising the minimum wage to 2,000 lei (around 114 US dollars).

Foreign policy

A member of the European People's Party (EPP), the PAS supports membership of Moldova in the European Union, establishing a strategic partnership with the United States and the further west, and maintaining a normal and non-confrontational relationship with Russia. The party supports strengthening Moldova's relationship with Romania but does not explicitly endorse the unification of Moldova and Romania.

According to Moldovan diplomat Mihai Gribincea, PAS promoted a "civic Moldovan nation" not adhering to Soviet-era Moldovenism and its anti-Romanian framing but neither to explicit unionism with Romania and to a national historical narrative coherently Romanian. This would have aimed to produce a balanced neutral identitary discourse to replace old ethnolinguistic and geopolitical conflicts and avoid fractures in the electorate and allow the formation of a broad civic front capable of supporting a pro-European agenda. A similar opinion was argued by the writer and journalist Nicolae Negru, who said in 2018 that PAS and the Dignity and Truth Platform have a duplicitous attitude towards Romania: on the one hand, they support closer relations with Romania, but, on the other hand, they promote the statalism and "the civic Moldovan nation". In 2025, the opposition Moldovan National Party accused PAS, that although it promoted the introduction of the Romanian language as the official language into the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova in 2023, it did not implement this law in order to promote the idea of "the civic Moldovan union" and not an explicitly Romanian identity of Moldovans. A similar opinion was expressed by the Romanian sociologist and geopolitician Dan Dungaciu in 2016:

The underlying theme of the anti-corruption battle was the idea of a “civic Moldovan nation.” THIS is the reason why so many people gathered around the DA Platform and, later, around Maia Sandu. For many Moldovan intellectuals, “anti-corruption” became the false conscience of a so-called “civic Moldovan patriotism.”

This also explains why, within the DA Platform and later in Maia Sandu’s inner circle, we could find former advisers of Mircea Snegur — people who, back in June 1994, were encouraging him to sponsor the insidious congress “Our Home – Republic of Moldova”, the first explicit and well-articulated project of Moldovan identity after the fall of the USSR. In 1994, Moldovenism effectively became a state project.

Leadership

Current leadership positions

Igor Grosu – President; President of the Parliament

Andrei Rusanovschi – Secretary General

Mihai Popșoi – Vice President; Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs

Vladimir Bolea – Vice President; Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development

Dan Perciun – Vice President; Minister of Education and Research

Gheorghe Hajder – Vice President; Minister of Environment

Doina Gherman – Vice President; Vice President of the Parliament

Liliana Nicolaescu-Onofrei – Vice President; MP

Radu Marian – Vice President; MP

Veronica Roșca – Vice President; MP

Lilian Carp – Vice President; MP

Larisa Voloh – Vice President; MP

Adrian Băluțel – Vice President; MP

Igor Chiriac – Vice President; MP

Virgiliu Pîslariuc – Vice President; MP

Tatiana Cucuietu – Vice President; MP

Ion Groza – Vice President; MP

Election results