October 13, 2014
News and Current Affairs from Romania
Ştefan Stoica, 13.10.2014, 11:59
Almost 53% of Romanians say they are interested and very interested in the election campaign, and almost 70% know already who they will vote for on November 2nd. This information comes from an Inscop Research poll run early this month. The most popular candidates are Victor Ponta, running for the ruling coalition he currently leads as Prime Minister, Sibiu mayor Klaus Iohannis, from the Liberal coalition, Elena Udrea, representing the pro-presidential Popular Movement Party, and Speaker of the Senate Calin Popescu Tariceanu, running as an independent. 46.5% of people polled said they knew the platforms of the candidates. This study was run by the daily Adevarul, using a sample of 1095, and a maximum margin of error of plus-minus 3%.
The Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest is set to rule on starting a criminal investigation against a former minister, Valerian Vreme, who held the portfolio for communications and IT between 2010 and 2012. He stands accused by anti-corruption prosecutors of abuse of office in relation to granting software licenses at preferential prices. Nine former ministers from various governments are under investigation for corruption. The Senate is also set to approve criminal investigations against two other former ministers, Ecaterina Andronescu and Serban Mihailescu. Prosecutors claim that the damages accrue to 20 million dollars of the 54 million issued by the government at the time for software licenses.
Romania’s national football side is in Finland to meet the local representative on Tuesday in a group F match counting towards the preliminaries of the European Championship in 2016. This would be Romania’s third game, as our footballers have so far defeated Greece in an away match one-nil, and held Hungary to a one-all draw in Bucharest on Saturday. Northern Ireland is at the top of the group’s standings with six points out of all the matches, followed by Finland and Romania, each with four points, Hungary and Greece with a point and the Faeroe Islands with zero points. Romania’s latest participation in a European championship was in 2008.
