What the newspapers say: March 2, 2009

The upcoming Liberal Congress, set for March 21, underlines the internal struggle for power, most newspapers note on Monday. Elsewhere in the news, local authorities in Pitesti block a 9 million euro investment.

Cotidianul reads that former PM Tariceanu and Crin Antonescu are counting their supporters each day: Antonescu received the votes of the Iasi group, in North Romania, under the lead of businessman Relu Fenechiu. He declared that Iasi delegates will fully support Antonescu.

At his turn, Antonescu said that he will offer Fenechiu a leading role in the party, perhaps a vice president seat. On the other hand, Tariceanu obtained the support of the branch in Constanta, South East Romania, lead by Puiu Hasotti.

Hasotti declared that he thinks highly of every candidate but unfortunately, he can only sustain one. According to an unofficial internal counting, Tariceanu would receive the endorsement from 517 candidates of 1,362. Antonescu announced that he would get, until now, some 500 votes.

Ludovic Orban, the undeclared campaign leader of Crin Antonescu declared for the newspaper that the balance between the two candidates is not favorable to Tariceanu so far. Some 450 delegates would cast a favorable vote for Antonescu while 120 for Tariceanu of a total of 570 validated candidates until now, Orban said.

Bogdan Olteanu on the other hand declared, as supporter of Tariceanu, that they are not making any estimations and Orban is lying. Moreover, he urged Orban to count the few votes he received last autumn when he ran for Bucharest Mayor.

Still in the Liberal camp, Gandul reads that businessman Dinu Patriciu will not endorse Tariceanu any longer even if, until now, Patriciu was one of his supporters. The newspaper reads that Tariceanu starts to lose his supporters to Antonescu.

Liberal sources quoted by the newspaper confirmed that Patriciu will not support Tariceanu any longer. What is more, he even tried to convince Tariceanu to back off and not run for a second mandate.

Sources explained that when refused, Patriciu started convincing internal leaders to support Antonescu and not Tariceanu. Thus, several influential leaders announced their endorsement for Antonescu this weekend.

Elsewhere in the news, local authorities in Pitesti block a 9 million euro investment for several years now, Evenimentul Zilei reads. Sc Lea International Impex SRL won an international public tender, organized by local authorities in Pitesti in 2000, to build an ecological garbage disposal but the project was blocked soon after.

The company’s obligation was to build the ecological garbage disposal, maintain and exploit it for 17 years, according to the contract. At their turn, the local council would offer 25,000 sq meters of terrain.

However, in 2002, Pitesti mayor Tudor Pendiuc changed his mind and decided to unilaterally end the contract. The company sued them and won the trial in 2005: the council was then obliged to commit to their contractual obligations. However, they refused because meanwhile, as they seized an EU funded opportunity for the same project.

Nevertheless, local mayor Tudor Pendiuc reads that the company failed to finish the construction in stipulated time which pushed Pendiuc to end the contract.