Hours after pulling off Romania's biggest political earthquake since the revolution which overthrew Nicolae Ceausescu, the country's soft-spoken new president followed through Monday on his vow to tackle corruption. Klaus Iohannis, the ethnic German mayor of the medieval Transylvanian city of Sibiu won a shock second-round election victory on Sunday, defeating the heavily-tipped Prime Minister Victor Ponta, with whom he must now work in what could be a fraught cohabitation.
The two men appeared to be on a collision course with Iohannis insisting that parliament throw out a law Ponta supported for an amnesty for politicians and judges accused of corruption. "I appeal to parliament to keep its word and reject on Tuesday the law on the amnesty and give a green light to all the demands for investigations by the DNA anti-corruption prosecutors," said the former physics teacher, best known up to now for avoiding conflict.
Ponta, who easily won the first round on November 2, was forced earlier this year to backtrack on a law that would have given politicians and government officials immunity from prosecution. The election was seen as pivotal for the second poorest country in the EU as it struggles to overcome an entrenched culture of corruption. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets between the two rounds of voting to support anti-corruption prosectors from the DNA office, and to condemn "corrupt" politicians.
Ponta's ruling Social Democrats have blocked corruption probes into contracts with Microsoft and the aircraft giant EADS and refused to lift the immunity of several party members. Iohannis, leader of the centre-right Liberal Party, campaigned on anti-graft platform to turn Romania into a "normal" country. Political analyst Radu Alexandru said his "historic" win was a "victory of the people against a system run by the political parties in their own interests", and a boost for democracy in central Europe amid a rising tide of authoritarianism, particularly in neighbouring Hungary.
"Romania is a positive exception to the trend, especially as it chose a president from an ethnic minority," he said. Iohannis, 55, who faced accusations of not being a "real Romanian", comes from the German-speaking minority, which now numbers less than 36,000 people. Most left the country after the collapse of communism after suffering decades of persecution under Ceausescu. But Radu said after turning the tables on the ruling party, the rigorous but uncharismatic Iohannis could find himself in a tricky stand-off with 42-year-old Ponta.
"Iohannis will have to deal with enormous public pressure, Romanians expect him to sort out issues around the rule of law but his powers are limited by the constitution," he said. The previous cohabitation between Ponta and right-wing President Traian Basescu was so stormy it often brought the work of government to a standstill. Iohannis - who had more than 54 percent of the vote with almost all ballots counted - has promised this will not be the case this time.
Analyst Radu Magdin said the votes of the three million Romanians who live abroad had a huge impact on the results. He said Iohannis' win was a not just a "massive anti-Ponta" vote, but a backlash against the authorities contempt for the diaspora, thousands of whom claimed they were stopped from voting in the first round.
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