Romania's former king, Mihai Hohenzollern, yesterday launched a withering attack on the political chaos that continues to envelop the country as it prepares to commemorate its 1989 revolution.
While a new prime minister - the third in as many years - put together his cabinet at a crisis session in a mountain ski resort, the former king launched a broadside on politicians he said were ruining the country's image abroad.
"It's not my job to criticise, but we need more capable politicians," said the 79-year-old former monarch, visiting from Switzerland. "The foreign investors are frightened now of coming to Romania. We should think of the truth, not political advantages."
"My criticism is directed at the whole system which is an impediment to democracy," he said yesterday. "This was as explicit a criticism as a monarch can give," said one western diplomat of the former king's speech. "It was a dignified performance."
His speech came after a week of high farce which began when President Emil Constantinescu, fired his Prime Minister, Mr Radu Vasile, blaming him for the poverty, corruption and lack of reform that have kept the country in the economic wilderness.
But Mr Vasile remained in office - literally, he stayed at his desk - accusing the president of acting unconstitutionally because only parliament has the power to sack him. For much of last week, Romania was governed by two competing prime ministers.
Mr Constantinescu's move, which came two days after the EU had announced it would begin enlargement talks with Romania, could hardly have come at a worse time. It was compounded when the constitutional court last week refused to discuss the matter - the judges did not want to fall out with the government. Meanwhile, the opposition party, the former communist PDSR, walked out of parliament, alleging violation of the constitution.
Mr Vasile has since agreed to resign, in exchange for being made leader of the Senate. But his successor, the former governor of the Central Bank, Mr Mugur Isarescu, has found his powers shackled. At the cabinet-forming meeting at the weekend in the resort of Sinaia, it was decided that Mr Isarescu is to be regulated by a total of four deputy prime ministers - one from each of the parties in the ruling coalition.
With the PDSR - led by a former politbureau member and ex-president, Mr Ion Iliescu - now leading opinion polls for next year's elections, western diplomats fear Romania is in a no-win situation. The new prime minister is likely to be even less successful than his predecessors in pushing through tough reforms - but the alternative is likely to see no reforms at all.
A string of broken promises have seen the IMF reluctant to lend Romania more cash, and reforms to the state-controlled parts of the economy have been thwarted by a wave of strikes this winter.
The former king has had no favours from either government. For six years the former communists, elected into office after leading the revolution in 1989, refused him entry - bundling him out of the country when he appeared unannounced in Christmas 1991.
The present centre-right government has reneged on promises to give him back some of his palaces and royal estates - apparently worried about criticism from an impoverished citizenry in a country where the average wage is £60 per month.