Boc: "I will not run for president"

Prime Minister Emil Boc announced yesterday that he has no intention of running for president and that his party did not take into consideration replacing Traian Băsescu as a candidate in the presidential race.

In an interview on the state radio, Prime-Minister Emil Boc said: "I"ve never had the intention or the desire to run for president. PD-L has never discussed the idea of having a different presidential candidate. The current president is also the candidate of the PD-L for Romania"s presidency".

The statement of the Prime-Minister comes as the Secretary General of the PD-L, Vasile Blaga, recently said that if president Traian Băsescu were to refuse to run for president again, the party could consider supporting the candidacy of Emil Boc for the position of president of Romania.

"All the polls show Mr. Boc is among the top four most credible politicians in Romania, he is definitely an alternative if the current president won"t run for another mandate", Blaga said.

As a matter of fact, Emil Boc has avoided answering the question of what his party would do if Traian Băsescu would no longer run for another presidential mandate or would do so as an independent.

Boc said he was confident that Traian Băsescu would enter the presidential race, and several leaders of PD-L agree.

• Boc: "I don"t intend to remain part of a government that won"t implement the reforms within the set deadlines"

During his interview on the public radio station, the Prime-Minister said that the government intends to take full responsibility before the Parliament for the public sector unitary wage law, the reform of the pension system and of the Education system.

"In the case of the unitary wage law, the reform of the pension system and the law of Education we basically have no other efficient method to enact them quickly then to go before the Parliament", the Prime-Minister said, who stressed that "he would use all the available means" to have these laws enacted within the initially agreed deadlines.

Emil Boc said: "Leaving aside that this is an election year, I won"t run a government that can"t enact these reforms within the agreed deadlines".

Discussing the decentralization process, the Prime-Minister said that the process would be done in keeping with the cost standards.