Ex-PM finally in jail after suicide bid

Published on 27 June 2012 at 13:40

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Former prime minister Adrian Năstase, who attempted suicide when he was arrested on June 20 for corruption, has been transferred from hospital to a prison clinic where he will serve a two year custodial sentence.

Meanwhile the University of Bucharest’s ethics committee has decided to investigate allegations that the current government leader, Victor Ponta, plagiarised his PhD thesis.

Ponta is dubbed the “cut-and-paste Prime Minister” on the front page of Revista 22, which asks "Where are we at?" in an editorial attempting to provide some perspective on a turbulent month in Romanian politics.

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Aside from the fact that it came after eight years of judicial proceedings, the recent sentencing of Năstase is perceived as the sign of a sea change in Romanian society. The Bucharest weekly warns that —

The freshly appointed Prime Minister and his new and longstanding henchmen are counting on another decade of docile society. But this will not happen.

The newspaper also warmly praises the protests organised by a non-political association of artists and intellectuals against the recent handover of political control of the Romanian Cultural Institute to the country’s senate —

The application of the law and an active civil society are two mechanisms that will bring about the emergence of a modern Romanian political class that is responsible and genuinely representative.

It has taken us 22 years to reach this point, and we will need a few more years to ensure that this effort is sustained. But we are on the right track.

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