Romanian president names reformist PM

ROMANIA: Romanian President Traian Basescu nominated his new prime minister yesterday, and hailed the start of a new, corruption-free political era as the nation marked 15 years since the toppling of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Mr Basescu, the former sea captain and mayor of Bucharest who claimed a shock election victory this month, named businessman Mr Calin Tariceanu as premier, handing him the task of forging a coalition capable of pushing through tough reforms in preparation for European Union membership in 2007.

"The only person capable of carrying out the promises I made in the election campaign is a prime minister from the alliance," Mr Basescu said, referring to his party, the Justice and Truth Alliance (DA).

Mr Tariceanu must win the backing of the ethnic Hungarian party, the Humanist Party and 18 independent members of parliament to have enough seats to govern, and resist the Social Democrats (PSD), who narrowly won last month's general election.

"I intend to form a government based on our alliance and present the team to parliament no later than December 29th," Mr Tariceanu said. "We want our government to start working at full speed before the end of the year."

The PSD has ruled Romania's 22 million people for most of the last 15 years, and Mr Basescu replaces President Ion Iliescu of the PSD, who took power when the communist dictator Ceausescu was ousted and then executed in December 1989.

That year, more than 1,100 people died when demonstrators clashed with security services and militia loyal to Ceausescu in Bucharest and the western town of Timisoara.

On December 22nd, 1989, six days after the revolution began, Ceausescu and his wife Elena fled by helicopter from the roof of the Communist Party headquarters in Bucharest. They were caught, tried in secret and shot by a firing squad on Christmas Day.

For most Romanians, however, those who replaced him were a disappointment.

Poverty and corruption still dominate the lives of millions of Romanians, many of whom now see the 1989 revolution as less of a people's uprising than a power-grab by Mr Iliescu and others who served in the Ceausescu administration.

"As soon as Ceausescu fled, the plotters, led by Iliescu, occupied the main centres of power just as they had planned," wrote historian Marius Oprea in the prominent Ziua newspaper.

"They took advantage of the anti-communist uprising to seize power without having to risk their own lives by organising a coup," he said.