Governing for most of this period, the party represented a large centrist multi-ethnic bloc led by former collective farm chairmen and village mayors.

These reformed Communists were motivated more by patronage than ideology and committed to maintaining their positions of power in the privatised agricultural and agro-industrial sector.

[3] The Agrarian Party traces its origins to a parliamentary club numbering 60 deputies and called Viaţa Satului ("The Life of the Village"), set up in April 1990.

[6] Composed largely of the former Communist agricultural and agro-industrial elite, the party championed Moldovan sovereignty, opposing attempts to join Romania and Russia.

It was notably promoted in a speech by the party's most prominent spokesman at the time, President Mircea Snegur, marking a shift from his earlier more pro-Romanian stance.

The Front's weakening since 1990 had already shown the unpopularity of pan-Romanian notions, and Snegur's rhetoric was against union with Romania and in favour of independence and territorial integrity.

[14] Despite the linguistic compromises reached in 1994, the matter did resurface in March 1995, when mass student demonstrations called for the constitution to recognise the language as "Romanian" and not "Moldovan".

A number of PDAM deputies defected to Snegur's new party, forcing the Agrarians to rely on support from the Slavic-dominated Socialist Unity Bloc.