Romanian Senate chairman suspended for six months from Social Democratic Party

Romanian Senate Chairman Mircea Geoana (in picture) has been suspended for six months from the Social Democratic Party, through a decision by the party's Standing National Bureau, party leader Victor Ponta said Monday. Ponta made it clear that Geoana would still have the Social Democratic Party's endorsement as head of the Parliament's upper house.

The row began after Geoana, the party's candidate in the 2009 presidential elections, wrote on his personal blog about a visit to controversial businessman Sorin Ovidiu Vintu during election campaign and before a decisive televised debate against President Traian Basescu, who was running for reelection. Geoana wrote that his then-spokesman Ponta taught him to lie about having visited Vintu. Ponta firmly denied it. Last week, a number of social democrats sent Geoana an open letter asking him to stop attacking the party.

Mircea Geoana used to be Romania's ambassador in the US in 1996 and in 2000, he became the country's Foreign Affairs Minister, under the PSD ruling.

Mediafax