Victor Ciorbea

Victor Ciorbea (born October 26, 1954 in Ponor ) is a Romanian politician, since the end of 2012 a member of the Romanian Senate as a representative of the National Liberal Party . He was mayor of Bucharest in 1996 and Romanian Prime Minister from 1996 to 1998 .

Life

Ciorbea was born in 1954 in the Transylvanian parish of Ponor. After completing his law studies, he was a judge at the Bucharest City Court from 1979, from 1984-1987 a lawyer at the General Prosecutor's Office and taught from 1984 to 1990 at the University of Bucharest . In 1992 he took management seminars at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland . After the fall of Ceaușescu , he began to work in trade unions and was chairman of various trade union federations from 1990 to 1996.

politics

Ciorbea joined the Communist Party in 1981 but was not politically active. In 1996 he became a member of the Christian Democratic National Peasant Party ( PNȚCD ).

As a candidate for the opposition party alliance Democratic Convention (CDR), Ciorbea became mayor of Bucharest on June 10, 1996. After the post-communist government suffered a defeat in the parliamentary elections of November 3, 1996, Ciorbea became Prime Minister of a coalition government of CDR, the social democratic USD and the party of the Magyar minority ( UDMR ) on December 12 . The coalition relied on stimulating the economy through tax cuts, facilitating foreign investment and accelerating the privatization of state-owned companies and received loans from the World Bank and the IMF . In domestic politics, the government promised the fight against corruption and the legal reappraisal of the Ceaușescu period. The reforms stalled after a short time; The worsening economic crisis and the falling standard of living led to disputes between the coalition partners. On December 3, 1997, Ciorbea reshuffled the cabinet and filled a third of the departments. However, this did not end the government crisis. The UMDR ended its cooperation on December 11th, and Foreign Minister Adrian Severin resigned on December 23rd . On January 14th, the PD - the second strongest force in the CDR alliance - demanded the resignation of Ciorbea and on January 28th withdrew its ministers from the cabinet. As leader of a minority government, Ciorbea held office until his resignation on March 30, 1998. After a dispute with Ion Diaconescu , the leader of the PNȚCD, Ciorbea founded the right-wing National Christian Democratic Alliance (ANCD) on April 17, 1999 . After both parties failed to enter parliament in the 2000 election, the ANCD rejoined the PNȚCD in 2001. Ciorbea became chairman of the PNȚCD from 2001; in 2004 he was replaced by Gheorghe Ciuhandu . Ciorbea retired from active politics in August 2004 and is a partner in a law firm with his wife Lacrima Ciorbea. On June 18, 2011 he was again chairman of the Christian Democratic PNȚCD for a short time . However, the legitimacy of the election was only recognized by one wing of the party, the party was shaken by various political and legal disputes over the legitimate representation of the party between different wing of the party. In the parliamentary elections in 2012, he was elected to the Senate as a representative of the National Liberal Party . He is a frequent guest on various televised discussion programs on political issues.

On April 8, 2014, Ciorbea resigned as senator to take up a post in the Financial Supervisory Authority (Autoritatea de Supraveghere Financiară). However, he did not do so only a little later and was instead elected ombudsman (Avocat al Poporului) on April 15, 2014 at the suggestion of the social democratic Partidul Social Democrat . The opposition, including the National Liberal Party , of which Ciorbea was a member at the time of the vote, boycotted the vote.