Court: Iliescu is Romania's president

Ion Iliescu: Victory is a "rebirth of hope"

BUCHAREST, Romania (Reuters) -- Romania's Constitutional Court has handed Ion Iliescu the presidency following his landslide election win.

In a final ruling, the country's highest court rejected a demand from the extreme right for the cancellation of the presidential run-off election held last week.

Former President Iliescu won back Romania's leadership by winning two-thirds of the vote and defeating the head of the extremist Greater Romania Party (PRM), ultra-nationalist publisher Corneliu Vadim Tudor.

"The Constitutional Court has rejected PRM's demand to annul the elections as the motives it invoked of fraud likely to alter the results of the vote ... could not be proved," the court said in a statement.

In confirming the final results, the Central Electoral Bureau said on Tuesday that the election had been free and fair and it will formally recognise Iliescu as president on Thursday.

He was president from 1990, following the downfall and execution of reviled dictator Nikolae Ceausescu, to 1996.

His rival Tudor threatened on Sunday to contest the results of the ballot which he called a colossal political fraud but a PRM official said the party had no alternative now but to accept the constitutional court ruling.

"I think there is nothing more we could do," he said.

The president-elect's leftist party also won the most votes in parliamentary elections held in November.

Party officials are now preparing a new minority cabinet to be announced later this month but some appointments are already firming.

Iliescu has asked former foreign minister Adrian Nastase to lead the government.

Romania's ambassador to the U.S. Mircea Geoana is set to be named foreign minister, while Mihai Tanasescu, the country's representative to the World Bank, will be the next finance minister.

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Romanian President
Ion Iliescu (in Romanian)

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