Former Romanian president Traian Basescu’s first years as head of the country and his warm relationship with his former counselor Elena Udrea are among the main topics of a new book published by Adriana Saftoiu, herself a former public relations advisor to Basescu in the first years of his mandate.

Adriana Saftoiu’s Cronici de Cotroceni (The Cotroceni Chronicles) narrates a few episodes that describe Elena Udrea’s relationship with the former president. Udrea later became a minister, and is currently serving preventive home arrest while being investigated in several bribery cases. Meanwhile, Basescu is enjoying a retired life as the grandfather of three, after having ended his second presidential mandate last fall.

“Elena Udrea was a delicate chapter in the President’s life. (…) Traian Basescu behaved in such a way that he turned a personal weakness of his as a man into a vulnerability for the President,” Saftoiu wrote in her book, according to Digi 24 news station.

She recalled some moments in which the president’s advisors had to deal with Basescu’s “hysteria crises” generated by lack of support for Udrea. She also wrote that Udrea spent a lot of time in the President’s office.

“The upside of the fact that Elena visited the President almost daily was that he didn’t call for us after a certain hour,” Adriana Saftoiu wrote. “Obviously, they were both behaving like teenagers who mustn’t get caught,” she added.

The former PR advisor also recalled a visit Basescu made to Italy in which Elena Udrea caught former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s attention. “Berlusconi looked at Elena: <<I would like you to have stayed a bit longer, so that we talked a bit just the two of us.>> Fabulous!” Saftoiu noted.

She also wrote about how she worked with the former president, whom she perceived as a difficult person and a cynical, cold-blooded politician who was also interested in preserving his freedom as an individual. “He was almost convinced that Adrian Nastase (the former PM and Basescu’s opponent in the 2004 presidential elections) wouldn’t set anything aside in sending him to jail. He needed time to solve the Fleet Case problem, his millstone in 2004.”

Adriana Saftoiu launched her new book on Sunday, May 24, at the Bookfest book fair in Bucharest. She was President Traian Basescu’s spokesperson and head of communications from December 2004 until March 2007, when she resigned. After that she enrolled into the National Liberal Party (PNL) and was elected deputy in Romania’s Parliament.

Elena Udrea was Traian Basescu’s chief of staff from February to November 2005, when she became known as “the blonde from Cotroceni”. She stepped down after only eight months amid controversy about her relationship with the President. She then became a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (PDL) and minister of tourism.

Traian Basescu, who served as President of Romania from December 2004 until December 2014, reacted to Saftoiu’s allegations in a TV show on Sunday evening by attacking her while not denying the stories. He said Saftoiu probably wrote this book because she didn’t have enough money and wanted to make some. He also said that every presidential adviser signs a loyalty agreement that has no prescription term and that “what you saw or did at Cotroceni stays there”.

On Monday, Basescu wrote a bigger Facebook post in which he denied some of the allegations in the book, including those related to Elena Udrea. “Elena Udrea has and always had exemplary loyalty and decency to me and to my family,” he wrote.

Elena Udrea also reacted on Facebook attacking her former colleague: “I place Adriana Saftoiu’s insinuations on her own frustrations in her relation with Traian Basescu and I wish she finds peace,”  Udrea wrote.

She added that it was sad how someone with true qualities, who could make money out of something else than selling gossip stoop so low as to invent such stories. She also said that she had suffered because of other women’s jealousy. “Unlike Adriana, I was never photographed coming out of obscure apartments from meetings with other women's husbands,” she counter-attacked.

She concluded saying that she never disrespected the President, nor his family, despite their partnership of almost 11 years.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Bookfest Facebook page)