György Frunda

György Frunda (born July 22, 1951) is a Romanian jurist, politician, and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), he has been a member of the Romanian Senate for Mureș County since 1992, and was twice the UDMR's candidate for the office of Romanian President (in 1996 and 2000). Since 1992, Frunda has been a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), serving as president of the delegation since September 2004, and sitting with the European People's Party (EPP). A member of the Constituent Assembly in 1990–1992, he served on the commission drafting the Romanian Constitution.

On December 18, 2004, György Frunda was awarded the Hungarian Republic's Grand Cross of the Order of Merit by President Ferenc Mádl. He is married to a physician, and has fathered two daughters. He was arrested in January 1958, and sentenced to 12 years in prison, but was set free by the general amnesty of 1964. Commenting on the electoral debates of that year, analyst Tom Gallagher contrasted the rhetoric of incumbent President Ion Iliescu, who had become noted for his polemic views regarding the UDMR, with that of Frunda; contending that Iliescu was adopting a nationalist discourse which had been discarded by the majority of voters, Gallagher described Frunda as the UDMR's "most moderate and fluent parliamentarian, who improved the UDMR's image for many Romanian voters".

Confirmed a senator by the legislative election of the same period, he became Secretary of the Judicial Committee, also serving on the Committee for Monitoring and the Committee for Territorial Improvement and Local Authorities, as well as on the Committee for Human Rights (in 1999–2000) and, as Secretary, on the Judicial Committee for Appointments, Discipline, Immunities and Validations. In reference to the bilateral treaty signed by the two states, he stated: "from 1918 till now no leading figure in Romanian politics ever had the courage to say 'let us normalise relations with Hungary'". Previously sentenced to 10 years in prison, Cseresznyés was the recipient of a pardon issued by President Constantinescu (December 1996). Frunda was endorsed by UDMR leader Béla Markó, who advised party members not to vote for a change in policy; in reaction, Tőkés stressed that his adversary winning was going to "set in stone the wrong political line for a long time" He received 696,989 votes (6.22%) in the national suffrage. Stating that he was "worried by the high score Mr. Vadim Tudor achieved", he declared that: "All political parties in Romania now have an obligation to isolate him and his party". He noted that the matter was problematic, since Ilașcu was confirmed to have "shot and killed two people" by the Moldovan Supreme Court, but pointed out that the Transnistrian authorities were holding Ilașcu in "inhumane conditions" (a situation which he defined as "inadmissible"). His statement to the press argued that Wass, unlike Romania's World War II dictator Ion Antonescu (who had been tried in a similar context), was the victim of procedural mistakes. During the televised debate hosted by TVR 1, in an unprecedented gesture, he summarized parts of the discussion in Hungarian.

Monitoring in Latvia and Russia During October 2005, he visited Latvia as Monitor, with the goal of establishing "whether Latvia is successfully fulfilling the commitments it undertook upon joining the Council of Europe" (part of the post-monitoring process).

He notably met with Premier Aigars Kalvītis, and gave a positive assessment of the way in which Latvia had carried out its obligations, while pointing out that Russian Latvians still faced some problems in naturalization and voting rights.

In November, as Russia prepared for taking over the presidency of the European Council's Committee of Ministers, Frunda visited the country on behalf of the Monitoring Committee, and attempted to convince the Russian leadership to ratify the 6th additional protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights, restricting the application of the death penalty to times of war or national emergency (see Capital punishment in Russia). While he clarified that the council was not going to sanction Russian representatives if the measure was not enforced, he argued that the country had to decide between siding with the majority of European states and the group of states represented by North Korea, China, and the United States. In addition, Frunda was quoted as saying he did not endorse the nation-state as defined by the Romanian Constitution, and as stating "I do not represent Romania [in the Council of Europe]. I am the head of the Romanian Delegation, elected by 10 members who represented Romania at a parliamentary level". (he stated: "Cultural autonomy means the right of a national minority, at a cultural level, for instance in schools, theaters and radio broadcasting, to decide for itself in the matter concerning it. It has nothing to do with territorial autonomy"). He dismissed opposition to Frunda's attitude as "lectures in loyalty", and stated that Frunda's activity at the Council of Europe "deserves praise and appreciation". The opening of archived documents uncovered that Frunda had been the subject of a "network file" (a type of document which is generally associated with Securitate informants). Speaking at the time, the last Securitate chief for Mureș County, Gheorghe Mărieș, claimed that he had first-hand information regarding Frunda's status as an informant, an allegation which the senator dismissed. During the same period, he asked to be heard by the CNSAS, an institution charged with investigating Securitate affiliations, and declared to the press that he rejected all notion of ever having been an informant or collaborator of the Securitate (while indicating that public figures who stated otherwise were legally liable). According to Evenimentul Zilei, the deliberation was tense, with Dinescu and Dumitrescu reportedly protesting the verdict during the actual procedures. The project drew opposition from the Social Democratic senator Șerban Nicolae, who argued that the text was purposely designed to incriminate former President Ion Iliescu. Referring to the UDMR faction formed around Sándor Kónya-Hamar, Tibor Toró, and Péter Eckstein-Kovács, he argued its alleged policy of "not providing viable written-down alternatives denotes [its] political weakness". Ghinea sarcastically noted that there was an additional paradox to be noted, since the Greater Romania agenda was "anti-mafia", whereas Frunda "now seems to me the most cleaned-up front for the corrupt system." On July 3, 2007, the Democratic Party representatives to the Parliamentary Assembly asked the Romanian Parliament to recall Frunda from his leadership of the delegation, claiming that he had been absent from the Judicial Committee during deliberations over Marty's report (they also indicated that they were not going to attend meetings at the Council of Europe until Marty would come and verify his conclusions on the spot). Chamber leader Bogdan Olteanu, a member of the National Liberal Party, criticized the decision, indicating that such resolutions could only be initiated by Parliament. Frunda eventually won the MEP seat but, on December 1, 2007, announced that he was giving it up in favor of party colleague Iuliu Winkler, explaining that he was being instead considered for the presidency of the PACE Judicial Committee. He stated: "I have decided it was more important for me and for the Hungarian community in Romania and, not least, for Romania, if I were to take up [the PACE] office." Frunda was subsequently involved in discussions about prison reform, speaking in favor of judicial methods to tackle the widespread inmate overcrowding, and supporting a more generalized use of parole.

Frunda again won a Senate seat after running in the November 2008 election, the first such suffrage to result in mixed member proportional representation at a newly established electoral college level. In Mureș County, the three main UDMR contenders for the electoral college seats were himself, Béla Markó, and László Borbély. In October, before Social Democratic leader Mircea Geoană was elected Senate Chairman, Béla Markó had announced that he favored Frunda for that office, were UDMR in a position to nominate a candidate.

Frunda's new term in the Senate was touched by controversy. Shortly after he returned to his seat, his new statement of financial interests revealed that he is by far the richest parliamentarian in Mureș. In June 2009, a Parliament administrative report showed that his office had cost the public 103,197 new lei in state-funded expenses (the costliest mandate).

In July 2010, Frunda introduced law amendments which drastically limited powers for the government-backed National Integrity Agency (ANI), an organism previously charged with verifying the assets and revenue statements of politicians; his objections were passed into law, mainly with backing from the opposition Social Democrats and the National Liberals, and with additional votes from the governing Democratic Liberal Party and UDMR. The anti-ANI legislation, unsuccessfully rejected by President Băsescu, was received with strong criticism by various journalists, political commentators and civil society opinion leaders. Revista 22 panelist Andreea Pora summarized Frunda's attempts to fight the ANI law, dating back to Monica Macovei's 2005 proposals, and described Frunda as a "devil's advocate" for those who wanted "a free passage to deals, wrongdoings and theft". She also noted that the senator was himself a reputed target for ANI investigators. Writing in 2002 for România Literară review, academic Mircea Mihăieș contrasted Frunda's "new tone and elegance" of the 1990s with his support of Social Democratic moves to keep dignitaries' fortunes under secrecy. Cristian Ghinea, who spoke of several attempts on Frunda's part to redefine the scope of ANI investigations as favoring the corrupt under the pretext of human rights concerns (and against the scope of European monitoring), ridiculed the association of interests between Frunda and the new National Liberal leader, Crin Antonescu.

Shortly after the Senate vote, Democratic Liberal Party senator Iulian Urban, who had abstained, denounced a political deal between his own group and the UDMR, through which Frunda was selected to uphold a measure coveted by PDL representatives, but unpopular with the electorate.

Frunda ran for mayor of Târgu Mureș at the June 2012 local election. He finished in second place with 37.3% of the vote, while incumbent Dorin Florea was re-elected with just over half of ballots cast.

Presidential elections

ElectionAffiliationFirst roundSecond roundVotesPercentagePositionVotesPercentagePosition1996 761,411 2000 696,989