The President of Romania Traian Basescu mentioned during last weekend's Bookfest in Bucharest that he had initially thought the adoption of a lustration law would be too late, but that "recent events" proved him the opposite. The communist system has still got effect in today's politics, which is why the Parliament must pass the lustration law soon, the President argued while participating at the launch of Vladimir Tismaneanu's book "Refusal for Forget". According to the President, the achievement of Tismaneanu's commission - a report on grounds of which communism was condemned officially - has to continue and explain "the mechanisms of a system that has still got effect on the life of politics". He went on: "If we want the influence of communism to diminish in the next 17 years, the Parliament must pass the lustration law as soon as possible." Typically communist efficiency Basescu opined that the typically communist propaganda was still "extraordinary efficient" at present, leading to the idea that a President roughly rebuked by a majority heading things to a bluff was actually a dictator. He continued: "It is not only educated people who served the former system who say it, but also young people with good wages and with the innocence of their age". The president also mentioned that his predecessors, Ion Iliescu and Emil Constantinescu, had changed governments with help from the coal miners or by forcing the Constitution, still no one had accused them of "dictatorial attitude". Absurd system Basescu described the communist system as absurd because of forbidding competition and the freedom to think. He claimed that due to his profession he had got rid of two obstacles: as a ship captain he had had to be a leader, to lead a team and have competition. He also explained that while a ship captain he was free to think when being abroad, without being controlled by anyone, despite the interdictions set by the communist system. (...) (R.G.)