Maia Sandu  Maia Sandu (born 24 May 1972) is a Moldovan politician, the current leader of the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), and former Prime Minister of Moldova (from 8 June 2019 until 14 November 2019). On 12 November 2019, Maia Sandu's government fell after the vote of the censure motion. 63 (deputies from PSRM and PDM) of the 101 MPs voted the motion submitted by the PSRM. Sandu was Minister of Education from 2012 to 2015 and member of Parliament of Moldova from 2014 to 2015 and in 2019. Sandu was selected as the joint candidate of the pro-European PPDA and PAS parties for President of Moldova in the 2016 election, however she was defeated in the subsequent runoff by the pro-Russian PSRM candidate, Igor Dodon, losing the popular vote by a margin of 48%-52%. Maia Sandu was born on 24 May 1972 in Risipeni, Fălești, in Soviet Moldavia. From 1989 to 1994, she majored in management at the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova (ASEM). Then, from 1995 to 1998, she majored in international relations at the Academy of Public Administration (AAP) in Chișinău. In 2010, she graduated from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Sandu speaks Russian, Spanish and English in addition to her native Romanian. From 2010 to 2012, Sandu worked as Adviser to the Executive Director at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. From 2012 to 2015 she served as Minister of Education of Moldova. She was considered on 23 July 2015 by the Liberal Democratic Party as a nominee to be the next Prime Minister of Moldova, succeeding Natalia Gherman and Chiril Gaburici. A day after being proposed by a renewed pro-European coalition, Sandu set the departure of the Head of the National Bank of Moldova, Dorin Drăguțanu and the State Prosecutor Corneliu Gurin as conditions for her acceptance of the office. Ultimately, Valeriu Streleț was nominated over Sandu by the President of Moldova. On December 23, 2015 she launched a platform „În /pas/ cu Maia Sandu” ("In step with Maia Sandu") that later became a political party called "Partidul Acțiune și Solidaritate" ("Party of Action and Solidarity").