20-year old drunk-driving case in the US haunts Romanian PM during party leadership race

Romania’s prime minister Florin Citu admitted on Thursday that he was charged with drunk driving in the US in 2001. He added that he found it odd that the information only came out now when he is battling Chamber of Deputies speaker Ludovic Orban for the top seat in the National Liberal Party (PNL).

“20 years ago, I drove under the influence of alcohol and paid a very large fine. It is interesting that under four PSD governments this information did not appear and it now appears during the internal competition,” Citu said when the journalists asked him about the drunk driving charges.

“It was a mistake for which I paid very dearly. I had to sell my car and I walked for a year. It’s not something to be proud of,” the PM added, quoted by G4Media.ro.

The 20-year old case was brought to public attention by local news platform flux24.ro, which also posted a link to the Iowa court ruling through which Citu was sentenced to two days in jail and a USD 1,000 fine.

Florin Citu went to university in the US in 1992 when he was 20. He studied economics at the Grinnell College in Iowa and then continued with a master program in applied monetary policies at the Iowa State University and a doctoral program at the same university. He completed his studies in the US in 2002, according to his official resume.

Citu went into politics in 2016 when he was elected senator on the ticket of the National Liberal Party (PNL). As a senator, he was one of the most vocal critics of the PSD government’s fiscal and economic policies.

After PSD was overthrown from power in November 2019, Citu was named finance minister in Ludovic Orban’s cabinet. Then, after the parliamentary elections in December 2020, Orban accepted to nominate Citu as prime minister to secure a governing majority with the reformist USR-PLUS alliance.

Florin Citu started his prime minister mandate in December 2020 and quickly emerged as Orban’s top challenger for the top seat in PNL. The two are currently engaged in a fierce battle for the party leadership. The new Liberal leader will be elected in a party congress that will take place in September.

(Photo source: Inquam Photos / Ovidiu Matiu)