Radu Mazare, the mayor of Romanian city of Constanta, said for Romanian news channel Realitatea TV on Tuesday night that HotNews.ro news website is "[President Traian] Basescu's agency of securisti" - a term used for members of the Ceausescu-era intelligence service Securitate. He made the statement following recent HotNews.ro articles that showed the Constanta City Hall made a series of commercial contracts with firms whose shareholders are associated with Radu Mazare in other companies.
"I like that Basescu's agency of securisti, this Hotnews, is giving the media their undercover journalists... This is the tactical method: elections come in three months, so we throw mud around now"., Mayor Radu Mazare said, speaking of presidential elections due later this year.
This is not Mazare's only attack on HotNews.ro. "HotNews kiss my ass", Mazare said in a press conference two weeks ago.
