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Romania's new Liberal head is Crin Antonescu
The largest opposition party in Romania, the Liberal Party (PNL), elected its new leader, Crin Antonescu, who took the helm from former premier and party head Calin Popescu Tariceanu and will work side by side with former transportation minister Ludovic Orban. Antonescu was voted president of the party which ran the government in the past four years while Orban was elected first vice president.“If a simple man like me succeeded in becoming a party president that means that every Romanian has a chance,” Antonescu said last night upon hearing the voting results. He promised to start out a new chapter in the history of one of the oldest parties in Romania. Antonescu collected 873 ballots while Tariceanu got only 546. Many party members viewed the latter as the man who divided the party and drove away key figures like economist Theodor Stolojan who formed a Liberal Democrat Party with other colleagues.
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Antonescu, 49, graduated from the History-Philosophy Faculty of the Bucharest University in 1985. He studied for a doctor's degree in old world history in 1985-89, when he also was a history teacher in Tulcea and Vaslui (eastern Romania).He has been a PNL member since 1990. He was a vice-president of the party during 1995-2002. Antonescu was a Minister of Youth Affairs and Sport from 1997-2000. He was re-elected a member of the Deputies' Chamber in 2000 and 2004 and won a senator's seat in the Nov. 2008 elections.