Serghei Cimpoeș is known in the Gagauzian autonomy both as a politician and as an entrepreneur. In 1996 he was hired as a marketing director at Basarabia-Agroexport, a food processing company, and four years later he took over the management there. He is still the executive manager at that company today.

Mr. Cimpoeș has been elected to the People’s Assembly (regional parliament) three times: in 2003, 2012, and 2016, as an independent on behalf of his native village Tomai.

In 2014 Serghei Cimpoeș took part in preparations for a referendum in Gagauzia on whether the region should join the Russia-led Euroasian Customs Union, with 98% of Gagauzian voters favoring such a path. The central government in Chișinău branded the referendum as illegitimate and the Prosecutor-General’s Office filed a case for despotism.

In the 2015 elections for the governor of Gagauzia, Mr. Cimpoeș first made public his plans to run for the post but later announced his support for the former governor, Dmitrii Croitor.

In 2016 the prosecution office of the Gagauzian autonomy requested the People’s Assembly to strip Serghei Cimpoeș of his parliamentary immunity over criminal charges against the businessman-turned-politician. In one of these he was suspected of pushing a company called Vegfrutis SRL to the edge of bankruptcy but his fellow MPs objected.

In a conversation with RISE Moldova, Mr. Cimpoeș said the case against him was filed back in 2014 but had never reached a court of law. He assured reporters of being unaware which prosecution office was managing the case but suggested that he knew the reasons of persecution: “inconvenient” political activity and competitors’ intention to seize his businesses.

In 2019, Serghei Cimpoeș ran for the post of governor as an independent candidate, earning only 7.1% of the ballot.