Viorel Cataramă (born January 31, 1955,

Bacău Bacău ( , , ; hu, Bákó; la, Bacovia) is the main city in Bacău County, Romania. At the 2016 national estimation it had a population of 196,883, making it the 12th largest city in Romania. The city is situated in the historical region of ...

Bacău County Bacău County () is a county ( județ) of Romania, in Western Moldavia, with its capital city at Bacău. It has one commune, Ghimeș-Făget, in Transylvania. Geography This county has a total area of . In the western part of the county the ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

) is a Romanian businessman and politician who founded the furniture manufacturer Elvila in 1990. In 2019, he founded the Liberal Right Party (DL) and ran on its behalf for the

2019 Romanian presidential election Presidential elections were held in Romania on 10 November 2019, with a second round held on 24 November 2019. Incumbent President of Romania Klaus Iohannis, first elected in 2014, was eligible for re-election. He defeated Viorica Dăncilă in the ...

where he received a very modest result, thereby by failing to qualify to the second round by a tremendous margin.

Early life

He was born in

, where he attended primary school and studied at the Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu high school (currently the Gheorghe Vrânceanu National College). He graduated from the Faculty of Commerce, from the

ASE Ase may refer to: * Ase, Nigeria, a town in Delta State, Nigeria * -ase, a suffix used for the names of enzymes * Aṣẹ, a West African philosophical concept * American Sign Language (ISO 639-3 code: ase) See also * Åse (disambiguation) Å ...

in 1980. In 2004 he became a doctor in economics, title awarded by the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies.

Personal life

He spent the first years after graduating as an economist at the Radio and TV Cassette Company in Bucharest. Since 1984 he has been an economist at Tehnoforestexport, and in 1987 he was appointed Director of the eastern Europe branch of the company BELCO. Since 1990, he has been the President and CEO of Elvila.

Political activity

Since 1990, he has been a member of the National Liberal Party - Aripa Tânără, and in 1990 he was appointed Secretary of State at the Ministry of Trade and Tourism, in the Petre Roman government. In 1992, he was in charge of the ''New Liberal Party'' (NPL), and in 1993, after its merger with the PNL, he became Vice President of the National Liberal Party (PNL), a position he held until 1999. During the 1996–2000 legislature, as senator on behalf of the PNL from

, he was elected president of the ''Economic Commission of the Senate'', the period in which numerous legislative initiatives were promoted, some of them eventually becoming laws.

Electoral history

Presidential elections

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Catarama, Viorel 1955 births Living people People from Bacău Members of the Senate of Romania Candidates for President of Romania National Liberal Party (Romania) politicians Romanian businesspeople