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President can't bear "gang of braggers"

Yesterday the President of Romania Traian Basescu developed upon his favorite topics once again. He explained his view on the pension raise, Bordei Park, the uninominal vote, the Constitution change and especially on why journalists were so hard to bear. He did all this talking in a show on the public radio post.
The head of state insisted that he would promulgate the pension law, on condition that the government provided him with the documentation so that he would make sure the pension funds would be enough till 2013. Basescu outlined it would be "a unique show", had the Parliament been summoned for extraordinary session to pass a new pension law. He commented: "I think it would be a unique show to have Mircea Geoana summon the Parliament once more. (...) Mircea Geoana, Bogdan Olteanu and the whole gang of braggers were asking me to promulgate the law before I received it." (...)
Enraged against journalists
The President let loose his abhorrence of journalists again. He argued: "The thing I would never give up for nothing in the world is my family's privacy. When I am with my wife, I am a private person, even if we are out in the city. I am not with politicians or state structures, I am not doing anything of public interest. And my wife doesn't have to bear what I personally took responsibility for. (...) I will respond every time the press disturbs me and my wife. It is my life and I am not giving it to them. As for the rest, journalists are as free as the birds".
He admitted: "I am at tense terms with those who offend me. But if I tease them a bit, they think a mountain has collapsed. Just watch TV and you will see people go mad when someone dares express an opinion resembling the President's".
President Basescu's rage was obvious: "Journalists are intrigued if one of them gets a depreciative word. But please try to count in one single day how many times you run into words as follow in newspapers: drunkard, stupid, idiot and more. In one single day such words are used 10 times more than I will say in 5 years of mandate. As journalists, you can't address a President this way. On the other hand, the President is supposed to tell himself: 'How brave you are. I like it.' This is impossible".
Bordei Park affair
According to the head of state, the target of the Bordei Park affair was the following: Costica Costanda, owner of the park, wanted to grab the piece of land under the French Village, at present property of Bucharest City Hall. President Basescu explained that it was the Bucharest inhabitants who were actually the owners of the French Village and the buildings there, reaching about 200-300 million Euro. He tried to explain why he had informed the Superior Council of Magistracy and why he had demanded inquiry on the court sentence reached in the Bordei Park case, asking the Bucharest City Hall and General Council to modify the general city plan. The president added that, according to the latter plan, Costanda was allowed to build on only 15% of the green area in the Bordei Park and the buildings were disallowed to have more than 3 floors. He mentioned, according to the plan, in the Floreasca Lake quarter they intended to build restaurants and entertainment places, but not office and bank buildings.

Anca Hriban
Ziua Sambata 14 Iulie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

President does money laundry

-- The President of Romania Traian Basescu was involved in fishy business both in 2000 and 2002.
In October 2004, the ONPCSB (The National Office to Prevent and Fight Money Laundry) demanded analysis of the transactions involving Traian Basescu and businessman Costel Casuneanu. The very same day in 2000 the two had bought lands from the very same owner. Although the pieces of land were close to each other and almost equal as surface, Basescu paid much less than Casuneanu.
In 2002, the President sold his property to his sister-in-law of Costel Casuneanu for 4 times more money. He used the money to buy a villa he donated to his daughter Ioana a few days later, but also a Mercedes, bought from the same Casuneanu.
Basescu chose such tricks in order to avoid stating some properties in his statement on personal properties, the above-mentioned Office assumes.
The Office proposed the reactivation of a work related to the same case, in 2003 categorized as "passive case". The case was to reach the Prosecutor's Office, but it was muffled shortly after Basescu had become a President. The National Anti-Corruption Department searched on the monkey business too, but prosecutor Camelia Sutiman buried the issue in January 2005. (...)

D.C.
Ziua Sambata 14 Iulie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

Minimum pension, a whisky bottle for Basescu

-- President Basescu's attitude at the pension raise is really filthy. He lied to people even live on TV. He lied in his letter to PM Tariceanu. He lies as he breathes, hopeful that he can fool people forever.
Those who said the President was opposing the Liberals' draft on the pension raise, unanimously voted by the MPs, he called liars. And then he said he wouldn't promulgate "a lying law". Therefore on the one hand he promises to promulgate the law because the Constitution requires him to, even if he has to send it back to the Parliament first. And on the other hand he says he won't promulgate it if it proves having no financial resources. This is impossible.
Basescu is twice a liar this time. Because of the Constitution, he must promulgate the law, whether he likes it or not. Did he not do it, President Basescu would break the Constitution so severely that even the Constitutional Court would announce the crime that may call for his suspension or even resignation. You don't play with 5,5 million retired Romanians who are mocked. This is why President Basescu won't even risk sending the law back to the Parliament.
The request he sent PM Tariceanu, asking the latter to inform him on the funds able to cover for the norms on the pension raise law, is a presidential self goal and a ball for the Liberal government to catch. The latter is a government brave enough to overcome a psychological limit - or a (macroeconomic) vicious circle - and to do what should have been done a long while ago. The pension raise is a possible, necessary and moral measure. One can't possibly keep millions of people hardly surviving for 18 years because there are no resources. Hence there will be resources only when they are dead. Many of them passed away in the meantime anyway.
Another lie of Basescu's, the one that has fooled some, is that the large pensions will actually raise, whereas the small ones will be raised too little. 1. He wanted to enrage people, because those with large pensions don't get them from the social fund. 2. I would like to see President Basescu and his wealthy daughters who spend in one week as much as one poorest retired Romanian gets in 10 years, how he can manage to live on a minimum pension one single month: this is 350 RON, 3 bottles of Chivas. He can't even pay his taxes with it. As for medicine, food or hygiene products, they are out of question. On the money Basescu spends every day on a bottle of whisky a poor retired Romanian can survive a week. Therefore to those retired getting the minimum and average pensions this raise matters a lot. It makes them feel human beings instead of starving animals.
When it was about the promulgation of his salary raise, President Basescu signed it at once. He did the same when promoting Democrat general Stanca, formerly a member of the Communist Secret Service. Let the poor man get some more money! He out-heroded Herod by pleading for lustration.
The Tariceanu Cabinet must be brave enough to prove moral all the way. If the case, they should proceed to an emergency ordinance to cut as much as possible on the pensions of the ex Communists and of those involved in the political police. Mind you again: this is about criminal villains like general Plesita, enjoying pensions of thousands greens for having tortured and killed people, including these millions of poor retired Romanians, whose pensions President Basescu refuses to raise.

Roxana Iordache
Ziua Vineri 13 Iulie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english