The ultra-nationalist mayor of the Romanian city of Cluj, Gheorghe Funar, has joined the main nationalist Greater Romania Party.

Correspondents say this will strengthen the Greater Romania Party, which opinion polls suggest now has the support of fifteen percent of the electorate.

The party won around six percent of the vote at the last general election in November 1996.

Mr Funar has achieved prominence through repeated verbal attacks on the large ethnic Hungarian minority in Romania.

He was formerly leader of the National Unity Party and has twice been a presidential candidate.