What the newspapers say: November 23, 2007
The last working day before the uninominal vote referendum and the European Parliament (EP) elections, newspapers are taking a breather off politics, allowing readers to open their eyes towards new issues. One is that the Romanian currency, leu (RON), is free-falling, but the Central Bank hasn’t been this happy in quite a while.
The second is that Romanian politics isn’t, after all, as bad as it seems: Russian president Putin campaigns for a political party while, in Hungary, the opposition towards prime minister Gyurcsany turned into a street fight.
Cotidianul resume the gamble for the uninominal vote. In the version Romanians will vote on this weekend, suggested by president Basescu, the election will take place as a two-ballots uninominal vote, with a winning majority.
In the draft approved by the Government, half of the mandates are for the uninominal vote winners (after just one round), while half are re-distributed by parties, according to their scores.
The second most important piece of news is that the Romanian currency, RON, fell down to 3.6 RON / euro, the same level as 16 months ago. The difference between the RON peak, on July 2, 2007 – 3.11 RON / euro – and the current value is 15.5%, same Cotidianul reads.
Despite the 15% loss, Romania now has 9 billionaires (in US dollars), compared to 2 in 2006. Financial weekly Capital will publish the top of Romania’s richest 300 people on Tuesday, Evenimentul Zilei informs.
Meanwhile, in Budapest, the protests against prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany degenerated into a street fight between demonstrants and the Police. Some 300 to 400 people were arrested last night in the Hungarian capital, Gandul reads.
The anti-Gyurcsany rallies became usual after the head of government admitted in 2006 that he lied to the people in his electoral campaign.
Far less interested in what a president may or may not do, Russians enjoy the iron fist of their president, Vladimir Putin. Last night, Putin held an anti-Western and anti-Opposition speech in front of over 5,000 supporters.
Putin is openly campaigning for his party, „United Russia”, although he can’t even become one of its parliamentarians, his mandate ending in spring 2008, Gandul informs.