Bucharest // Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta announced his resignation on Wednesday over a nightclub blaze that killed 32 people, a day after more than 20,000 people rallied in Bucharest to demand he quit.
“I am stepping down as prime minister,” he said in a television broadcast. “I hope the government’s resignation will satisfy the people who came out in the streets.”
He said it was right that responsibility for Friday’s tragedy was taken by top officials and not just the three bosses of the Colectiv disco in Bucharest.
Demonstrators massed on Tuesday evening in Bucharest’s Victory Square, the seat of government, calling for Mr Ponta’s resignation and that of his interior minister, Gabriel Oprea.
The marchers chanted “Ponta resign” and “killers”, while some waved the national flag with holes in it – a symbol of the popular revolution 25 years ago that toppled dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
The 43-year-old Mr Ponta, prime minister since 2012, has been under growing pressure to resign since he went on trial in September facing charges of fraud, tax evasion and money laundering.
The charges date back to 2007-2011, when Mr Ponta – the first Romanian head of government to stand trial while still in office – was working as a lawyer.
The toll from the nightclub fire would have been far worse but for the heroism of two men, physicist Claudiu Petre and drummer Adrian Rugina, who went several times into the burning club to rescue trapped revellers, only to die themselves.
* Agence France-Presse
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