Manea Mănescu

Who was Manea Mănescu?

Manea Mănescu was a Romanian communist politician who served as Prime Minister for five years during Nicolae Ceaușescu's Communist regime.

Mănescu's father was a Communist Party veteran from Ploiești, who in the early 1920s supported the transformation of the Socialist Party into the Communist Party. In 1944, after the coup d'état, he worked together with Nicolae Ceaușescu, his future brother-in-law, in the Communist Youth Union. In 1951, Mănescu was appointed as head of the Department of Economics at Bucharest University and Director General of the Central Directorate of Statistics. He served as Finance Minister from 1955 until 1957.

In December 1967, he was appointed Chairman of the Economic Council. He was promoted to full membership of the Executive Committee in December 1968 and, after holding various positions in the party and government, and in March 1973 he became Prime Minister, a position he held until 1979, when he retired, reportedly due to ill health. He died in 2009, aged 92.