Government > Leaders Stats: compare key data on Romania & Ukraine

SHARE TWEET EMBED

•  

STAT	Romania	Ukraine	HISTORY
Head of state > Term limit for head of state	5 Ranked 54th. The same as Ukraine	5 Ranked 58th.
President	Traian Basescu	Viktor Yanukovych
President > Profile	<p>Traian Basescu, a former sea captain and mayor of Bucharest, first became president following elections in 2004. </p> <p>He gained a second endorsement from the electorate in a May 2007 referendum when they rejected an attempt by parliament to impeach him. MPs had decided by a large majority to remove him from office, accusing him of exceeding his constitutional powers. </p> <p>The attempt to impeach the president followed tension between him and the government of then Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu over the pace of reforms. </p> <p>Mr Basescu won the December 2009 presidential election by a very narrow majority over the opposition Social Democrats&#039; Mircea Geoana. </p> <p>Since he came to power, Mr Basescu has drawn international praise for his anti-corruption efforts and for preparing Romania to join the EU. </p> <p>He has faced frequent challenges to his authority from his opponents in government, and has been suspended from office twice pending efforts to impeach him - in 2007 and July 2012.</p> <p>In 2005 Mr Basescu started the process of opening the files of the feared communist-era secret police - the Securitate. Researchers cleared him of accusations that he collaborated with the Securitate. </p> <p>Mr Basescu was 53 at the time of his election. He was transport minister between 1996 and 2000. </p> <p>His predecessor, Ion Iliescu, had dominated Romanian politics since the fall of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989. Under his Social Democrats, Romania entered Nato and moved towards EU membership. </p>	<p>Mr Yanukovych was declared the winner of the second round of voting in the 2010 presidential election, with a 3.48% lead over Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.</p> <p>His inauguration as president marked the climax of Viktor Yanukovych&#039;s political comeback. First, he overcame the disgrace of the 2004/05 presidential defeat and retained the leadership of the Party of the Regions, leading it back into power as prime minister in 2006-2007.</p> <p>He narrowly lost the 2007 parliamentary elections, but benefited from discord between President Yushchenko and Mrs Tymoshenko and went on to capitalise on discontent over the government&#039;s failure to cope with the global economic crisis after 2008.</p> <p>Born into a poor family in Donetsk Region, eastern Ukraine&#039;s industrial powerhouse, in 1950, Mr Yanukovych had a troubled childhood and was twice jailed for violent crimes in his youth. On release he went to work in the local transport industry, where he rose through the ranks of management under the patronage of cosmonaut and local Soviet MP Georgi Beregovoi.</p> <p>He established a political power base in the Donetsk Region administration, becoming governor in 1997 and later head of the council. There he built close ties to local tycoon Rinat Akhmetov.</p> <p>President Kuchma appointed him prime minister in 2002, and nominated him as presidential candidate for the governing coalition of political and business interests in 2004.</p> <p>Mr Yanukovych has worked hard to distance himself from the scandals of the pre-2004 period and from accusations of being Russia&#039;s placeman. He says that his aim is to balance relations between Russia and the European Union, with EU integration as a &quot;strategic aim&quot;.</p> <p>His first two years in office saw extensive concessions to Russia, such as extending the Russian lease on the Black Sea Fleet base in Crimea and moves to restrict media freedom. However, he drew the line at taking Ukraine into a customs union with Russia.</p> <p>His government has regularly earned criticism from the United States, European Union and international rights groups over the imprisonment of Mrs Tymoshenko and other opposition politicians and the alleged rigging of the 2012 parliamentary elections.</p> <p>Progress towards reaching an association agreement with the EU - seen as a key step towards eventual EU membership - raised the hackles of Russia, which retaliated by banning the import of certain Ukrainian products. The government&#039;s decision to abandon the association agreement in November 2013 brought tens of thousands of protesters onto the streets of Kiev, accusing the president of bowing to Russian pressure.</p>
President > Summary	President Basescu is a former sea captain	President Yanukovych says he aims to balance Ukraine&#039;s ties between Russia and Europe
Prime minister	Victor Ponta	Mykola Azarov (resigned)
Prime minister > Profile	<p>Victor Ponta became Romania&#039;s third prime minister in less than six months when his left wing-dominated Social Liberal Union (USL) alliance took charge in May 2012 after toppling its predecessor in a confidence vote. </p> <p>Mr Ponta&#039;s party, which came to power by capitalising on mounting discontent over austerity policies, won a landslide victory at parliamentary elections in December 2012.</p> <p>The USL won nearly 60% of the vote, against 17% for the coalition of parties backed by President Basescu, who had threatened to use his power as president to nominate the prime minister to block Mr Ponta&#039;s return to office.</p> <p>Mr Ponta has proved popular with Romanians, but he has faced criticism from some abroad who accuse him of disregard for democratic norms and the rule of law.</p> <p>In his very first months in office, he courted controversy by launching a campaign to impeach President Basescu in the midst of the economic crisis, having already ousted the heads of both houses of parliament and the ombudsman. Senior European politicians and officials have criticised these steps, which threaten to isolate Romania within the European Union.</p> <p>Mr Ponta also faces accusations - which he denies - that he plagiarised part of his doctoral thesis. </p> <p>On coming to power, Mr Ponta promised to stick to a deal with international lenders while seeking to &quot;correct social imbalances&quot;. Romania obtained a 20-billion-euro ($26-billion) rescue package from the IMF, the EU and the World Bank in 2009, in exchange for steps to cut public spending, which helped it emerge from recession.</p> <p>In October 2013 his government faced further scandal when his deputy, Liviu Dragnea, was charged along with 74 other people with trying to rig the 2012 referendum that failed to oust President Basescu.</p> <p>Mr Ponta replaced Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu, who in February 2012 succeeded Emil Boc, who in turn had resigned amid violent protests at his government&#039;s drastic public-spending cuts.</p>	<p>Mykola Azarov resigned as prime minister amid mass protests in January 2014. </p> <p>President Yanukovych accepted his resignation and that of his cabinet, but asked them to stay on until a new government is formed. It follows a vote by MPs to scrap controversial new laws limiting the rights of demonstrators, which sparked violence when they were introduced.</p> <p>Mr Azarov, an ethnic Russian born in Russia, is a close associate of President Yanukovych and succeeded him as head of the Party of Regions in 2010. After the government of Mr Yanukovych&#039;s chief rival, Yuliya Tymoshenko, fell in a vote of confidence in March 2010, Mr Azarov formed a coalition with the Communists and the centrist Lytvyn Bloc.</p> <p>Mr Azarov was head of the tax administration in 1996-2002, and his term as finance minister during Mr Yanukovych&#039;s subsequent premiership oversaw dramatic economic growth.</p> <p>He was briefly acting prime minister during the presidential election crisis of 2004-2005, and resumed the post of finance minister during the Yanukovych government of 2006-2007.</p> <p>A mining specialist, Mr Azarov is a technocrat with neither a political base nor ambitions of his own. His poor command of Ukrainian is often highlighted by his opponents, who see him as a symbol of Mr Yanukovych&#039;s alleged pro-Russian orientation.</p> <p>Ukraine&#039;s economy has stagnated under the premiership of Mr Azarov. He has refused to cut expensive gas subsidies, which the IMF says are a block on any further loans. Negotiations with Russia on the price of gas have made little progress, and plans to forge closer ties with the European Union foundered in November 2013 when, after much prevarication, the government decided against signing a free-trade agreement.</p>
Prime minister > Summary	Victor Ponta has been accused of undermining the rule of law	Mykola Azarov resigned at a time of unrest

15 30 60 All

APA MLA MHRA CSE AMA Chicago Bluebook Bluebook/JOLT Citation