What the newspapers say: March 20, 2009

Today’s Liberal Congress will elect a new party leader to confront Democrat Liberal President Basescu in this year’s presidential elections, one newspaper reads on Friday. Elsewhere in the news, a nepotism case hits the spotlights again in close competition with some sketchy personalities first introduced at OTV, a television promoting sex, shock and scandals, one newspaper reads.

Cotidianul reads about the tight internal electoral battle in the Liberal party in today’s congress. The new leader of the party will most probably be announced today, after 6pm. The competition between former PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu and Crin Antonescu is very tight.

The newspaper reads that in the last three weeks the two candidates had to seriously negotiate and count each possible vote as local party branches shifted sides just as often as Parliamentarians did.

The Liberal Congress will host 1,202 delegates mandated by the 47 territorial branches, together with 274 rightful delegates of the party. Antonescu counts on the support of 20 branches while Tariceanu on 18. In the other 7, preferences are split between the two candidates. Most probably, the newspaper reads, the difference will be made by the rightful delegates of the party.

Also at the Congress, a new first vice president of the party will be elected in the person of either Ludovic Orban, from Antonescu’s camp or Teodor Atanasiu, Marian Petrache or Romeo Stavarache from the other camp.

Evenimentul Zilei reveals a new nepotism case: Finance ministry director Georgia Babici is also proposed as a board member of EnergoNuclear, the company who is supposed to build the new reactors of the Cernavoda plant.

According to sources, Ana Babici is the daughter of Romania’s National Energy Regulatory Authority, Petru Lificiu. The Authority is the national electrical energy arbiter and checks both Nuclearelectrica and EnergoNuclear.

Lificiu declared for the newspaper that he found out about this from the press and added that his daughter is a good economist which is probably the reason she has been appointed. However, Ana Babici could not be contacted.

According to laywer Mihai Mares, quoted by the newspaper, there is no conflict of interest in this case as the practice is very often met. He underlined that it is more a question of morality since nepotism is the basic criteria of such appointments. Remember the case of Ionut Costea, brother in law of Social Democrat Mircea Geoana as EximBank Director, Mares said.

The newspaper reads that Ionut Costea was proposed by Adriean Videanu in the new Administrative Board of Transelectrica – one of the most important companies in the Ministry of Economy’s portfolio.

In close competition for the spotlights, Gandul reads about the new Pandora box opened by OTV, a television that promotes sex and scandals for ratings. Its owner, Dan Diaconescu makes use of sketchy characters to entertain the public in prime time for high audience rates.

Such shows triggered amazing audience rates for the television: 2.7 rating points and 13.1 market share at the population level and 1.4 rating points and 7.9 market share for the commercial public.