The last working day before the uninominal vote referendum and the European Parliament (EP) elections, newspapers are taking a breather off politics, allowing readers to open their eyes towards new issues. One is that the Romanian currency, leu (RON), is free-falling, but the Central Bank hasn't been this happy in quite a while.
The second is that Romanian politics isn't, after all, as bad as it seems: Russian president Putin campaigns for a political party while, in Hungary, the opposition towards prime minister Gyurcsany turned into a street fight.
Cotidianul resume the gamble for the uninominal vote. In the version Romanians will vote on this weekend, suggested by president Basescu, the election will take place as a two-ballots uninominal vote, with a winning majority.
In the draft approved by the Government, half of the mandates are for the uninominal vote winners (after just one round), while half are re-distributed by parties, according to their scores.
The second most important piece of news is that the Romanian currency, RON, fell down to 3.6 RON / euro, the same level as 16 months ago. The difference between the RON peak, on July 2, 2007 - 3.11 RON / euro - and the current value is 15.5%, same Cotidianul reads.
Despite the 15% loss, Romania now has 9 billionaires (in US dollars), compared to 2 in 2006. Financial weekly Capital will publish the top of Romania's richest 300 people on Tuesday, Evenimentul Zilei informs.
Meanwhile, in Budapest, the protests against prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany degenerated into a street fight between demonstrants and the Police. Some 300 to 400 people were arrested last night in the Hungarian capital, Gandul reads.
The anti-Gyurcsany rallies became usual after the head of government admitted in 2006 that he lied to the people in his elector
