Leaders of the Social-Democratic Party feel Băsescu is "playing games"

C.D.

According to Social-Democratic leaders, the news that current president Traian Băsescu, would consider giving up running for a new presidential mandate in autumn this year, has zero credibility.

The chairman of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), Mircea Geoană, doesn"t believe that the leader of the democrat liberals, Emil Boc, might be appointed by the Democratic-Liberal Party (PD-L) as "backup candidate for the presidential elections", nor that president Traian Băsescu might withdraw from the competition for the Cotroceni palace.

According to him, these are just some of Traian Băsescu"s "tricks", who is "trying to get himself noticed".

Adrian Năstase, the leader of National Council of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), ironically said that the decisions made by Prime-Minister Emil Boc"s, might determine whether President Traian Băsescu runs for president again or not.

Adrian Năstase said: "I understand that Mr. Boc implemented the lump sum tax in order to increase unemployment. He therefore influences the decisions of Mr. Băsescu, who said that, if the unemployment rate were to rise above 10%, he wouldn"t run for president anymore. Which means there might be some truth to the theory that Mr. Boc could run for President. As it is, I find Mr. Boc"s actions to be rather unfriendly to Mr. Băsescu".

PSD"s honorary president, Ion Iliescu, does not believe the rumors that Traian Băsescu might be toying with the idea of not running for president this autumn.

Ion Iliescu said: "I do not believe Mr. Băsescu is going to give up on this battle, this is just some him playing games. I don"t believe in Mr. Băsescu"s drop out, this is just a figure of speech".

President Traian Băsescu on Sunday said that he has not yet reached a decision on running for president in the election scheduled for this autumn.

The head of state said that his main challenge is the crisis, and he emphasized that if the current circumstances lead to social unrest, he won"t run for a new mandate.

Băsescu also said that if he decides not to run for president again, PD-L would have to appoint a candidate for this autumn"s elections.

PD-L Vice-President Gheorghe Flutur yesterday said, after the weekly meeting of the party"s leaders, that will PD-L will discuss the Romanian presidential elections after the elections for the European parliament, scheduled for June 7.

According to Agerpres, Gheorghe Flutur said that the party"s schedule is busy with the elections for the European Parliament, and with the steps for economic recovery, and not with "news from unknown sources, with documents which are more or less kept under cover and are more or less official". "After June 7th, we will discuss the presidential elections, PD-L is not looking to cheat by starting the campaign early, we haven"t got our electoral campaigns mixed, for now we deal with the Europarliament elections, and after June 8th we will discuss our strategy for the presidential elections", Mr. Flutur concluded.