Iliescu wins Romania election

Supporters celebrate as Iliescu's victory is assured

Former communist Ion Iliescu has won a clear victory over his nationalist rival in Romania's presidential elections.

With more than 80% of the ballots officially counted, Mr Iliescu had nearly 67% of the vote.

This vote was a categoric rejection of extremism, xenophobia and totalitarian temptations

Ion Iliescu

His Party of Social Democracy (PDSR) is also the largest in the country's newly elected parliament, which is meeting on Monday for the first time.

Mr Iliescu, 71, beat the nationalist candidate, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, who alarmed Romania's ethnic Hungarian, Gypsy and Jewish communities with his outspoken views. He has not yet admitted defeat.

The president-elect said: "It is a victory of the maturity and responsibility of the Romanian people."

"This vote was a categoric rejection of extremism, xenophobia and totalitarian temptations," he told supporters.

European hope

The contest went to a second round because Mr Iliescu failed to secure outright victory in the first ballot.

Mr Tudor's candidacy raised alarm in the West

The BBC's Nick Thorpe in Bucharest says the outcome will reassure Western governments alarmed by the rise of Mr Tudor, once a court poet to communist-era dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Mr Iliescu - the country's first post-communist president, from 1990 to 1996 - portrayed the election as a choice for Romania to head towards European Union membership or step backwards towards nationalism and xenophobia.

"Our decision to join the Western economic and military alliances was and remains unmoved," said Mr Iliescu after his victory.

He added a warning: "The phantoms of the totalitarian past can appear at any time from poverty."

Mr Iliescu: "A rejection of extremism"

Mr Iliescu's PDSR won parliamentary elections two weeks ago and has already named members of its new government.

The new rulers now face the difficult task of satisfying the hopes of their voters for an end to the economic crisis, but also the expectations of the European Union, International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

They also face a nationalist opposition, Mr Tudor's Greater Romania Party (PRM), which has 25% of seats in parliament.

Figurehead

The Romanian presidency is a largely ceremonial role, with real power in the hands of parliament and government, but the president is highly visible at home and abroad.

Pro-Western parties endorsed Mr Iliescu, as did many of the country's newspapers, although for many Romanians he was only the lesser of two evils.

One newspaper editorialist called the run-off "a choice between Aids and cancer".

Mr Tudor campaigned on a law-and-order platform that went down well with voters, putting him in second place in the first round of elections on 26 November, only 8% behind Mr Iliescu.

He has toned down his nationalist rhetoric recently, focusing instead on criticism of corruption.

Mr Iliescu lost the presidency in 1996 to centrists who painted his administration as corrupt.