The issue of national identity is taken seriously by Balkan people – including the least serious among them.
Romania Poll Overshadowed by Child Hitting Scandal
Bucharest | 01 December 2009 |
Romania’s presidential election campaign is being overshadowed by video footage that appears to show incumbent president Traian Basescu hitting a 10-year old boy in the face.
For the past four days or so the 18-second footage shot in 2004 has been shown repeatedly on televisions and has circulated the globe online.
It shows Basescu, then Bucharest mayor, at a rally, when a clearly distressed woman comes over to him. The president leans over, listens to her, and then all of a sudden his hand jerks to one side, appearing to slap the boy next to her.
Basescu’s team says the film is fake, a dirty trick put up by this opponents ahead of 6 December’s run-off vote. Basescu denies hitting the child.
