ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in Moldova. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in Moldova. In the decade since Moldova declared independence from the Soviet Union, this tiny country has struggled for every success. Although Moldova boasts a positive record for the conduct of free and fair democratic elections, in 2001 it became the first former Soviet state to return unreformed Communists to power. Moldova is a parliamentary democracy in which citizens age 18 and older can change their government under a system of universal, equal, and direct suffrage. Voters elect members of parliament by proportional representation to four-year terms in the unicameral parliament.
