14 February 2013 Last updated at 13:22 ET

Moldova profile

President: Nicolae Timofti

Nicolae Timofti served as a senior judge

Nicolae Timofti, a senior judge, was elected president in a parliamentary vote in March 2012, ending nearly three years of political stalemate.

Aged 63 and chairman of Moldova's Supreme Magistrates Council at the time of his election, Mr Timofti is an independent who has never been involved in politics and has 36 years of experience as a judge.

In an address to parliament before his election, he strongly supported the aspirations of Prime Minister Vlad Filat's government for European integration but also promised to be an apolitical president.

Moldova had no full-time president since Vladimir Voronin, a Communist, resigned in September 2009.

The opposition Communists, who reject the government's goal of integration with the EU, boycotted the vote in which Mr Timofti was chosen.

Prime minister: Vlad Filat

Vlad Filat heads a coalition government

Prime Minister Vlad Filat and his three-party pro-Western coalition were confirmed in office after winning parliamentary elections - the third since April 2009 - in November 2010.

The vote had been called after the failure of a September referendum on the coalition's proposal to introduce direct elections for the presidency.

Mr Filat said seeking associate EU membership for Moldova, raising the country's low average living standards and tackling corruption would be his main goals. He also said his government would maintain strategic relations with Russia, the US, Romania and Ukraine.

His coalition first took office in September 2009 after the re-run of a disputed election led to the ousting of the Communists, who had been in power since 2001.

The Communists had been declared winners of the April 2009 elections with 50% of the vote, but the results were overturned after mass protests sparked by vote-rigging allegations.

After the July re-rerun, Mr Filat's Liberal Democratic Party proceeded to form a coalition with other anti-Communist parties, the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party.

In February 2013, with two years to go until the next election is due, Mr Filat announced his party was withdrawing from the coalition while continuing to give it parliamentary support.

Mr Filat said corruption was hampering the government's ability to act and demanded that a new coalition agreement be signed.

At the same time, prosecutors launched criminal investigations into three government ministers implicated in corruption scandals.

In January, Moldovan politics had been shaken when Prosecutor-General Valerii Zubco resigned in response to accusations - which he denied - that he was involved in the mysterious fatal wounding of a businessman on a hunting trip and an alleged attempt to cover up the details.

Vlad Filat was born in 1969 and studied law at the University of Iasi in Romania. On graduating, he went into business.

He first entered parliament in 2005 and became the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party in 2007. He is married, with two children.