According to most Romanians, Nicolae Ceausescu, Traian Basescu and Ion Iliescu are the best political rulers of Romania in the last century. There are very few who think Kings Carol I and Mihai I have got such a merit. As for the negative top of politicians, it is dominated by Nicolae Ceausescu, Ion Iliescu and Emil Constantinescu. The information is part of the last Public Opinion Barometer released yesterday by the Foundation for an Open Society. The research was accomplished in October 10-22, 2007 on 2,000 Romanians and the information on the image of political leaders with a historical part has been compared to the data collected in 1999. (...) Ceausescu is both angel and demon According to the research, dictator Nicolae Ceausescu enjoys a most stabile image. His image didn't actually change in 1999-2007, as scores vary only with some 2% in both tops. One fifth of Romanians thought he was the worst and one fifth took him for the best. He gets supports from those Romanians who think, although in 2007, that life before 1989 was better than the present life and that freedom was also better before the 1989 revolution. According to sociologists, those who feel nostalgia for the Ceausescu era are very dissatisfied with the present government, they are elderly, rather poor people with also poor education. Research shows they are in poor connection with modern information on the Internet and they are good at acquaintances. In other words, this is about those Romanians whose lives were better under the Communist regime and who still have influent relationships. Such Romanians didn't get rich after 1989 and they are rather isolated in cultural terms and unconnected to electronic modernization. Researchers admit: "This 22-23% stability of that category of people who think Ceausescu was one of Romania's best leaders is surprising." They claim the Romanians feeling such nostalgia make two groups, in fact: those discontented with the present standards of living (about two thirds) and those rather satisfied with their lives, but dissatisfied with the ruling government (about one third).

Anca HRIBAN, Ovidiu BANCHES