World

Romania Elects Iliescu

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 10, 2000 / 7:31 PM EST / CBS

Former Romanian president Ion Iliescu coasted to victory Monday against an ultranationalist opponent in the official tally of a presidential election deemed vital to the impoverished country's future.

"It's an emphatic vote and I want to thank the people," Iliescu told private Prima television in a broadcast interview.

With 98.06 percent of Sunday's vote counted from the 15,085 polling stations, the Central Electoral Bureau said Iliescu had about 67 percent of the ballot to 33 percent for Corneliu Vadim Tudor. The bureau said turnout in the election was 57 percent.

President-elect Iliescu ran on a message of protection for Romania's poorest, but tempered that message once victory became apparent with a different pledge - to continue painful economic reforms.

To achieve the two conflicting goals, his minority government must try to alleviate widespread poverty and root out corruption.

At the same time, it must push through reforms Romania needs for foreign loans and for European Union membership.

"Iliescu and his party ... cannot afford to wait and reforms cannot be postponed," newspaper columnist Adrian Ursu said.

"Privatization of the banking sector, public utilities and the elimination of state company arrears must take place," he said, referring to debts state enterprises owe and wages they haven't paid.

Iliescu said he expected to see the economy start to improve in 2001, but "the first six months will be a hard test for us," the Associated Press reports.

He pledged to take steps to encourage foreign investors by simplifying "tangled legislation" and cracking down on corruption that deters honest business. "Investors want the economy to work well so they can do business," he said.

Like former Soviet bloc countries, Romania must close loss-making state enterprises, even at the cost of laying off hundreds of thousands of workers draining state coffers by making products with no markets.

If Iliescu does not shut the enterprises, Western national and institutional support for the country will dry up, stalling efforts to catch up with the rest of Europe and putting dreams of joining the European Union on hold.

But with unemployment hitting 11 percent, monthly pay at $100 and inflation headed for 40 percent this year, such budget-cutting moves carry risks of street unrest.

Former Foreign Minister Adrian Nastase, 50, who will head the government, told journalists the main priority will be to pass social welfare laws to help Romania's 23 million population get through winter.

Still, Iliescu's support is not rock solid. Many voted for him because they considered Tudor's message more harmful to Romania than Iliescu's image - as a former Communist, now 70, whose tenure as the nation's leader from 1990 to 1996 was marked by stagnation and corruption.

"Better a retiree than a dictator," read a headline Monday in the daily Evenimntul Zilei newspaper.

Iliescu's party, which won 37 percent of votes in parliamentary elections that preceded the runoff, also is not on strong footing and will rule as a minority government with support from centrist parties. Tudor's Great Romanian Party was second in the parliament vote with 20 percent.

To show the electorate, and the West, he was serious about government, Iliescu said he planned to move quickly.

"Time is no longer on our side," he said. "We have to restore the state's authority, eliminate extreme poverty and have a dignified entry, into the European Union and NATO."

Like many people in this country, which is ranked last among the 12 nations lined up to join the European Union, university student Claudiu Moraru, 22, was relieved Iliescu
won.

"Iliescu's great victory Sunday showed that people chose the right way," the student at the Polytechnical Institute said. "It could have been the first time
in our history, if I'm correct, with a nationalist as democratically elected president, not imposed,"

Iliescu, whose earlier term was marred by cronyism and failed economic reforms, said his priorities were to lift the country out of the morass of poverty and disillusionment.

He hopes to be sworn in this week.
.