Mona Muscă

Mona Octavia Muscă (born Mona Octavia Nicoară; May 4, 1949) is a Romanian philologist and politician. A former member of the National Liberal Party (PNL) and of the Liberal Democratic Party (PLD), she was a member of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies for Caraş-Severin County from 1996 to 2004 and for Bucharest from 2004 to 2007. In the Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu cabinet, she served as Minister of Culture and Religious Affairs from 2004 to 2005.

She was born in Turda and attended the Philology Faculty of the West University of Timișoara. Following graduation, she became assistant professor at her alma mater, teaching the Romanian language to foreign students. She was also a scientific researcher at the Romanian Academy's Iorgu Iordan Institute of Linguistics, with articles and speciality studies to her name.

Following the 1989 Revolution, Muscă joined the Civic Alliance Foundation and then the Civic Alliance Party, joining the PNL in 1995. She arrived in Parliament in 1996, on the lists of the Romanian Democratic Convention, surviving that alliance's 2000 defeat due to her closeness to Valeriu Stoica. In the Chamber, she sat on the committees for culture, art and mass media (1996-2007); equal opportunity between men and women (2000-2004; 2006-2007); and foreign policy (2007); and was vice president of the body from December 2004 to January 2005. During her legislative career, Muscă initiated bills on a number of subjects: setting up ROMPRES, legal holidays, prevention of cruelty to animals, protection for victims of domestic violence, national security, conflict of interest in public functions and free access to public information. It was this last proposal, made in 2001, that gave her public visibility, allowing her to cast herself as a link between politicians and civil society. She also helped initiate a lustration law, inspired by the Proclamation of Timișoara and meant to exclude from public office those "who were part of the power structures and repressive apparatus of the Communist regime". In 2004, she was the only politician to file a penal complaint against Prime Minister Adrian Năstase in the "Zambaccian" corruption case. Following the election that year, Năstase defeated her in her bid to become President of the Chamber of Deputies. Muscă instead was named Culture and Religious Affairs Minister by the new PNL Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu. She resigned in August 2005, citing incompatibility with Tăriceanu, whom she had criticised for not calling early elections. Within her party, she was a vice president of the PNL.

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