Maia Sandu
Sandu beat Italian leader Giorgia Meloni, who came second in the nomination Set the European Agenda on Migration.
Along with Sandu and Meloni, the top five leaders were Javier Milay (Argentina), Ahmed Sharaa (Syria) and Hakainde Hichilema (Zambia).
Donald Trump (Rewritten the international order) dropped out of the rankings.
“There have hardly been more important elections this year than the Moldovan parliamentary elections in September. The Kremlin did its best to undermine Mrs. Sandu’s administration by orchestrating an unprecedented campaign of illegal vote buying and spreading disinformation in support of candidates loyal to Moscow. Their victory would create a dangerous vulnerability on Ukraine’s western flank, give Russia a foothold deep in Europe and deal a serious blow to the EU. Despite serious economic hardship because of the war next door, Ms. Sandu persuaded voters to back her – thereby inflicting Vladimir Putin’s only serious defeat of the year,” the newspaper said.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Maia Sandu emphasized: “I am the leader of a small country, but we are doing everything we can to increase the efficiency of public spending and spend as little as possible. This is the way things are going. It’s normal.”
“Maia Sandu earns less than £1,000 a month as president of Moldova,” the British newspaper noted.
Speaking about European integration, the Moldovan president said: “It is about Moldova surviving as a democracy.” She called the EU accession process a “survival strategy”.
The original list of the Telegraph World Leaders 2025 ranking looked like this: Giorgia Meloni (Italy), Friedrich Merz (Germany), Volodymyr Zelensky (Ukraine), Emmanuel Macron (France), Pedro Sanchez (Spain), Donald Trump (USA), Claudia Sheinbaum (Mexico), Mark Carney (Canada), Javier Mealey (Argentina), Bernardo Arevalo (Guatemala), Cyril Ramaphosa (South Africa), Hakainde Hichilema (Zambia), John Mahama (Ghana), Patrice Talon (Benin), Ahmed Sharaa (Syria), Lawrence Wong (Singapore) and Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh).
