The Danube floods the press on Friday, which reports about record debits that threaten to cover with water the Southern part of Romania, right before the Easter holidays.

Natural catastrophes make way to political ones in the newspapers pages, that relate about the new interim leader of the local Bucharest Social Democratic Party, Marian Vanghelie, a character with a very interesting background and political career.

Another big error is considered by the Liberals the vote cast yesterday in the Senate for the VAT cut for food products, and in particular, the Democratic party "betrayal" vote against the Government policy.

EVZ writes about "Romania under waters, the sequel 2006", an episode that repeats after one year in the region of Banat, where people were left homeless following heavy rains during the same time, last year. The county of Timis, hardly hit last year, faces again the pouring rivers, the houses and agricultural land flooded, the evacuation.

Danube riverbank counties are trying to deal with the record debits of the Danube, to protect and consolidate the dams, and are on positions for whatever may come. The citizens expect the worse, but authorities ensure everybody will be offered protection.

Jurnalul National also reports about the Danube’s record debit reached yesterday at the entrance into Romania of 15,400 cm/s. Forecasts warn that the maximum will be recorded in three days, of 15,800 cm/s.

Run is the only way to fight the Danube flooding, according to Adevarul, which fears that the catastrophical floods in 1970 might repeat these days.

Romania Libera accounts of the joint vote of the opposition and the governing Democratic and Conservative parties for the cut of the VAT tax for food products, which has stirred the fury of the Liberals, who label the vote as an act of treason.

Cotidianul also writes about the vote that brought together the Democratic Party and the opposition.

The VAT reduction was an initiative of the Conservative Party, but the rest of the Governing alliance agreed to vote against as the state budget was limited and such measures would not necessarily entail a big discount for food products, but a lot of extra money for food producers, according to Liberal PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu.

Adevarul quotes PM Tariceanu as the VAT cut law is populist and demagogical.

However, the political bomb that is widely covered in today’s press is the interim leadership of Marian Vanghelie of the main opposition Social Democratic party local of Bucharest. Marian Vanghelie is the mayor of the Sector 5 of Bucharest, the only PSD mayor in the Capital in this mandate. He has been mocked in press due to repeated mistakes in his speech.

Cotidianul explains PSD’s decision to opt for Vanghelie for the executive presidency of the Bucharest subsidiary as a measure to ensure a minimum number of votes from the mayor of sector 5 constituency. Vanghelie is under investigation for bad financial management.

According to Adevarul, the founder of the party and the former Romanian president Ion Iliescu, disagrees with the interim mandate for Vanghelie, who pares up with Sorin Oprescu as the main leader of the local. Iliescu favours the former leader of PSD Bucharest, Dan Ioan Popescu.

However, Popescu is under the DNA prosecutors’ investigation and has self suspended from all party’s positions.