Basescu admits he supported Voronin in 2005

Romania’s President Traian Basescu confessed that in the spring of 2005 he backed the reelection of the Communist Vladimir Voronin as President of Moldova, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting the website of the newspaper ZIUA. On the Romanian public radio station on Thursday, Basescu said that he supported Voronin in his decision to form a majority on April 4, 2005, when Voronin was elected head of state for the second time, by the vote of the Christian Democratic People’s Party (PPCD) headed by Iurie Rosca. The 11 MPs of the PPCD voted for Vladimir Voronin and thus marked the beginning of the demise of Rosca’s party. As a result of the alliance with the Communists, which was considered by the voters as betrayal, in the 2009 elections the PPCD did not manage to pass the election threshold of 5%, polling only 1.9% of the ballot, ZIUA says. According to the newspaper, the 2005 intervention in Voronin’s favor took place in the context of the ‘orange revolution’ in Eastern Europe. According to a former Christian-Democratic PM, the instruction that the PPCD should vote for Voronin came from two directions: from Bucharest and from Washington. Now Traian Basescu says that Voronin will not get his support in forming a majority in the Parliament. Basescu made the statements after Vladimir Voronin told Radio Romania Actualitati in an interview that he is open for cooperation with Romania and that it wasn’t he who started a ‘war” with Romania, but Traian Basescu, who was aggressive towards the Moldovan authorities. “I understood that I expelled Moldova’s Ambassador in Bucharest, not Voronin Romania’s Ambassador in Chisinau. I understood that we modified the visa regime, not Voronin. It is a kind of Bolshevik propaganda and President Voronin probably remembered that I lent him a hand to form the majority after the 2005 elections. He probably wants to say that he wants to cooperate. This time, I will not help Voronin to form the majority that he needs to elect the head of state,” Basescu said. Basescu’s statements explain the short warming of the relations between him and Vladimir Voronin in 2005, when Voronin had been in Bucharest for several times and gave the Romanian President thousands of bottles of wine.