With a license in mathematics and a master’s degree in IT, Ion Ceban has also studied public administration at the Russian Presidential Academy of Public Administration. In 2018 he attended a course at the Berlin School of Administration in Germany.

A former Communist, Mr. Ceban has joined the Moldovan Socialists Party (PSRM) and landed in the Parliament on its candidate lists in 2014. A while later he changed his seat in the legislative body for a place in the municipal council of Chisinau. When his boss Igor Dodon – a former Communist too – won the presidential elections in 2016, Ion Ceban was appointed advisor for domestic policy, secretary and spokeman to the chief of state.

In the 2018 local elections Mr. Ceban ran for the job of mayor of the capital, which had been vacated by Dorin Chirtoacă over suspicions of abuse of office in the Paid Parkings scandal. Mr. Ceban reached a second round and then lost to Andrei Năstase of the Dignity and Truth Platform, who captured 52.57% of popular votes. However, the results of the local election was cancelled by a court that found a video in which Mr. Nastase allegedly turned to illegal electoral practices. This decision was widely criticized by the international partners and civil society.

Ion Ceban obtained a new ticked in Parliament in the February 2019 elections and was elected one of its deputy presidents thanks to a coalition between PSRM and ACUM – a bloc made of the Action and Solidarity Party of Maia Sandu and DA of Andrei Nastase, his main opponent in the local elections.

In the general local elections of October 2019, he again ran for mayor of Chisinau. He got to the second round, in which he once more dueled with Nastase. Only now Ceban won with 52.39% of the ballots, becoming the first left-wing general mayor of Chisinau.

In 2020, RISE Moldova wrote that, on the eve of the presidential elections, several political consultants from the Russian Federation arrived in Moldova and became actively involved in Igor Dodon’s campaign. The same political technologists had already been spotted in 2019 at the PSRM headquarters, during the period when Ion Ceban ran for and won the Chisinau mayoralty. Later, the United States officially sanctioned them for attempting to influence elections in Moldova. The three, Iuri Gudilin, Olga Grak, and Leonid Gonin, worked both for Dodon and for Ceban, providing the latter with support in his mayoral campaign. According to U.S. authorities, their collaboration with Ceban continued through support for his new party. Ceban, however, denied receiving political support from the three.

At the end of 2021, Ceban left the Party of Socialists and announced the launch of the National Alternative Movement, criticizing the PAS government. “There has never been a worse government,” he declared. He then established the National Alternative Movement Party. The party was officially registered in January 2023, and in the autumn of the same year, Ceban secured another term as mayor of the capital.

Also in 2023, the National Integrity Authority issued a finding stating that Ion Ceban could not justify a discrepancy of over 620,000 lei between his income and expenses for the period 2017–2019. Ceban challenged the finding in court and asked the Constitutional Court to declare unconstitutional the legal provision that allows termination of office in such cases, arguing that it does not distinguish between elected and appointed positions (Ceban being elected, not appointed). The Court rejected the request as inadmissible.

In 2025, in the context of the parliamentary elections, Ceban joined forces with Ion Chicu, Mark Tkaciuk, and Alexandr Stoianoglo to create a common electoral bloc with which to participate in the vote.

Just two months before the parliamentary elections, Romania banned him from entering the country and the Schengen Area for a period of five years, citing ties with Russia. Ceban described the decision as a “political reprisal” orchestrated by Maia Sandu and the Action and Solidarity Party.