Romanian justice officials yesterday began investigating the country's very own Sexgate - allegations that the President, Mr Emil Constantinescu, has enjoyed a wild love affair with a 25-year-old film star. Bucharest newspapers claim lurid details of a relationship between the 59-yearold married President, a former geology professor, and an award-winning actress, Roma Hartner, are contained in her stolen diary.
The government says the allegations are part of a plot by former communists to discredit the centre-right administration because it is trying to shut down loss-making coal-mines in Transylvania.
Photographs showing the couple dancing cheek to cheek, the actress in revealing cut-out leather trousers, are splashed over the main dailies with headlines screaming "Sexgate at Cotroceni", the name of the presidential palace. But both say the dancing, during Mr Constantinescu's election campaign, was harmless fun.
Attention is now focusing on the accuser, leader of the ultra-nationalist Greater Romania Party, Mr Corneliu Vadim Tudor.
Mr Tudor, a former communist poet who turned to nationalism after the 1989 Christmas revolution, is nicknamed "The Terminator" after announcing his desire to terminate members of Mr Constantinescu's administration. Mr Tudor's lieutenant is the miners' leader, Mr Miron Cozma, at the forefront of a bitter fight to prevent the coal-mines from being closed down.
Diplomats say Mr Tudor is using Sexgate as a direct challenge to the authority of Mr Constantinescu who cannot prosecute him for libel unless he can first get a vote to lift his parliamentary immunity.
Government spokesmen have been quick to link the Sexgate allegations with the mines struggle. "All the accusations are false and representing a disgusting, pathetic circus," said Mr Constantinescu's spokesman, Mr Petre Berteanu.
Hartner, winner of best actress at the 1997 Locarno Film Festival, launched her own spirited defence in a head-to-head TV debate with her accuser. "I know the President, I even danced with him, but all our meetings took place in public places," she said. "I respect him very much because he looks like my father."
Yesterday she took samples of her handwriting to the state prosecutor's office. It has ordered Mr Tudor to appear today to compare extracts of the manuscript he claims is her diary.